Santana Lopez Makes Sure Situations Are Win Win
by leftlanden
Summary: Santana hatches a new scheme with characteristically questionable motives, this time inspired by seemingly unrelated conversations with Rachel and Quinn. Eventual Rachel/Quinn and Brittany/Santana.  Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Okay, so I will admit these have not been the best couple of months I've ever had. First there was, you know, kind of a rejection that happened. Then my original song, though obviously a work of superior artistic merit, didn't get picked for Regionals – clearly the result of Mr. Schuester running Glee Club like it's under communism or fascism or something. Then my DVR decided to delete the last three episodes of Jersey Shore before I could even watch them. So let's face it, things are way worse than anyone as smokin' hot as me should ever have to tolerate.

Although, I can't say life is a complete waste. Because today after Glee rehearsal, the one thing that always seems to make me feel better was bending over her laptop bag in a short skirt, filing away her sheet music. I could see high enough up those legs to know where her thigh-highs ended, so I really couldn't have been asked to suppress the smack I planted on her ass as I walked towards the door.

"See you for Idol tonight, Berry?" I said with a wink.

She stood up, smoothing her hands over her skirt, cheeks darkening a few shades as a smile touched the corners of her mouth.

"Yes," she said. "Oh! And Santana, make sure you're there by 7:30," she yelled after me as I walked out of the choir room. "I need your help putting together the appetizer platter!"

I was trying to process the idea of doing anything in a kitchen other than grabbing a bag of Doritos and heading back upstairs, when I was suddenly overcome by a stifling aura of judgmental buzzkill.

"Santana, what the hell was that?" Quinn demanded.

I turned around to face her, crossing my arms over my chest. "Can I help you with something, Babymama Barbie?"

She pursed her lips and stared into space a few feet above my head. "Could you please refrain from objectifying other female members of the Glee Club?"

"What, only the football players get to do that?" I asked, smiling.

"By doing things like that, you're no better than the boys who used to lift up our Cheerios skirts as we walked down the hallways," she said.

"Okay, first of all, you liked that," I pointed out. "Second of all, what are you even talking about? What did I do?"

"You. . ." she looked side to side before proceeding, and lowered her voice until it was barely above a whisper. "You hit Rachel's ass in the choir room."

I smirked. "I know, I just wanted you to have to say it. Anyway, third of all, I gots full visitation rights to that ass. You should see what I do with it when we're not in public," I said with a shrug.

"Please stop."

"You brought it up. Also, wouldn't it be Berry's job to tell me if I was out of line? Why is it that you're like the patron saint of unsolicited feminism? Does she pay you to be her knight in shining armor, or whatever you are?"

"Look," she said, rolling her eyes, "We all know I don't care about Rachel—"

"I don't know that," I interrupted her.

She narrowed her eyes into a glare. "I just think that as former Cheerios and the most popular female members of the Glee Club we should show a little more. . . class."

"Fabray," I said, leaning in close and looking her in the eye, "You see these extensions?" I pointed to my hair for effect. "I just got them. And thusly, I do not want your grubby mitts anywhere near them. So lucky for you I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that, and not clock you one. But you're pushing my buttons." I said, raising my index finger to within inches of her nose. "Last warning."

"Whatever," she said, shaking her head and turning to walk away.

Four hours later I was slouching into Rachel's couch sipping a virgin crantini because her dads were home, and choking down vegan mushroom paté and garlic artichoke hummus because she made me promise not to eat anything before I came over, "otherwise I'd have no motivation for culinary adventure."

"I really don't understand why we had to make all of this just for me to sit on your couch and watch reality TV," I said, eyeing the bedazzled silver platters on her coffee table.

"Someday, Santana, when you're hosting a party in Los Angeles for the hottest players in young Hollywood to honor my feature film debut, you'll thank me for forcing you to learn to make gourmet vegan hors d'oeuvres," she said matter-of-factly, flipping the channel to Idol.

"Oooh! Look," she said, hitting my thigh. "We're just in time, I like this one." She stared, smiling, at the television.

"His voice leaves something to be desired, but his smile is so sexy and his charismatic mastery of the stage gives him definite leading man potential."

"You mean front man?"

"Yes, whatever."

"I don't know," I said, "All I can think about when I watch this show is Sam and Steven Tyler cracking open their enormous jaws and tucking away food for the winter like the hamster I had when I was seven."

"Oh," she said, apparently taking that statement at face value. "We don't have to watch this. To be honest none of the contestants this year are all that remarkable. We could do so much better if we were on that stage."

She lowered the volume and then turned to face me, getting that excited Berry look on her face that says she's going to talk to you at great length about a subject of her choosing no matter your state of mental preparedness.

"So, what would you sing if you were auditioning? A few weeks ago I would have easily said with your look and voice you should so something R&B, but after that Trouty Mouth debacle, it's clear your calling is a modern-day Billie Holiday, maybe with some Adele thrown in for attitude and pop radio appeal—"

I've learned to interject with short, pointed answers.

"'No One' by Alicia Keys," I said.

She inhaled sharply. "Oooh, yes that's perfect!" she said, eyes widening at me. "Maybe slightly predictable, but you could mix up the arrangement. Do you have ideas? We could go next year if they have auditions in Chicago or Detroit or something." She paused for half a beat, then placed her hands on my leg and said sincerely, "Although we would have to discuss in advance ways to maintain our friendship once you got eliminated and I went on to win the competition."

I gave her a glare even though by now I was so used to that type of shit it barely even registered anymore.

"Yes, I have ideas. But I don't really play or read music very well yet. I'd have to ask Tina for help again."

She nodded pensively. "Or Quinn."

"Quinn."

"Yes, Quinn Fabray, maybe you know her," she said impatiently. "She has a surprisingly good knack for melody despite her lack of experience with songwriting. We had a few promising starts on original songs before she called me a silly schoolgirl and told me I'd end up alone forever."

She paused and raised her chin a little. "I don't understand her. But in a way I have to be grateful to her, since without her I could never have written my original song."

Now _this_ was interesting.

I sat up straight.

"Wait, wait, hold up. Quinn helped you write 'Get it Right'?"

"Not technically, no. But she inspired me to access the emotion I used to write it."

"Wow," I said, leaning back into the couch cushions. "That's super gay."

"I'm not even sure whether she did it on purpose, because she's been all over the place lately. With her hot and cold act she's even more confusing than you used to be. I mean, at least I knew where you stood, but with Quinn it's like one day she's my best friend and the next day she's so mean it's like none of it ever happened."

Rachel continued, but by then I had tuned her out. Because suddenly something that had been rattling around in my brain for weeks had finally clicked into place. And I felt more alive than I had in a long time – because Santana Lopez had a plan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Quinn Fucking Fabray has been a giant, blonde thorn in my side for going on three years now.

It's not just that she's always one step ahead, like getting picked for head Cheerio, or dating the quarterback while I settle for sleeping with the wide receiver. No, it's despite things like her illegitimate infant-sized hypocrisy, she still gets to judge everyone else's life and get away with it. I mean, she gets herself knocked up and then lies about which member of Glee Club is the father, and they still like her better than me.

She's back in the Celibacy Club and makes like she's attached to Jesus at the hip, when at the same time she's letting Shrek come over and mess up her sheets. And it's all so she can win a plastic tiara. I mean, God. At least when I lie and manipulate people I have reasons that are, like, interesting.

Case in point, Thursday afternoon I had a little convo with Puckerman at his locker.

"Noah, I need a favor."

"More booze already?"

"Now that you mention it."

"Santana, I'm running out of 7-11s where I won't get arrested on sight."

"Not really my problem. Anyway, I also need a second favor. I need you to invite Ken and Barbie to a party at my house tomorrow night."

"Sweet, is this one clothing optional, too?"

"You're not invited. Also, it's not an actual party."

"So, you want me to invite Finn and Quinn to a fake party?"

"Mmhmm, yeah."

"And why do I have to do it?"

I looked at him witheringly. "Because I don't like them, and this way I can avoid talking to them? And they might be sort of mad at me over the whole mono thing."

He thought for a second. "Forget it, Santana. I don't know what you're pulling here, but I'm not onboard." He closed his locker and turned to go.

"Okay, fine," I sighed and crossed my arms. "I'll let you watch me make out with Rachel."

He turned back around. "For real?"

"Yeah, whatever. Just like. . . hang out by the choir room door after rehearsal tonight. I usually make out with her after so I can erase the memories of all the annoying things she said."

"Yeah, I get that," he nodded. "But hold on, Santana. For lying to my best friend and my baby's mama I'm going to need a guarantee of second base. I don't care whose bases they are, but someone needs a double or no deal."

I didn't actually mind agreeing to that, since it was probably going to happen anyway.

"Fine. But stay out of her eyeline. If she found out I agreed to this she'd cut me off for at least a week."

He pumped his fist in the air as I walked away.

The next afternoon, Friday, I tracked down Finn before the last class of the day.

"Bad news, Finnilla Ice. Party's off."

"Oh. Bummer. I was kinda looking forward to it. Ever since we moved in with the Hummels it's a lot harder to sneak beer into the house. What happened?"

"My mom found out the resort in Key West didn't have a full spa, so she called the Department of Health to have them shut down so they could get a refund on the room."

(Thank God she had actually done that once, or I might not have been able to think of anything.)

"Well, I better text Quinn," he said, taking out his phone, "She'll want to make other plans. She gets mad if we waste a free weekend evening when we could be seen together out in public."

"It's okay," I said, pushing his phone away. "I'll tell her. We have English together next period."

"But, I thought Quinn had AP Art History eighth period," he said with a furrowed brow.

At first I thought he was making that class up, but then I realized he wasn't that clever.

"AP Art whatever is an English class, Finn. I just didn't think you would have heard of it. Don't worry, Quinn will get the message about the party," I said with a smile.

As I walked toward my English class, I texted Rachel.

just saw Finn get detention  
>Fggns took phone<br>Tell Q to meet him at the party?

Yes, Quinn Fabray had a weakness, I smiled to myself. And it just happened to be one that I had, shall we say, intimate access to.

Quinn arrived at my house at 6 o'clock sharp. I knew she'd be right on time; it was one of her annoying habits. As she came up the stairs to the family room loft, I turned around from arranging the bottles of liquor and caught a look on her face that told me she'd pretty much rather be dead than be the only one here with me.

"Q, you're early. Hoping to get a jump on the drinking before you have to interact with anybody else we know? Or is that just me?"

"I'm not early. Puck said 6."

I rolled my eyes. "I told him 7."

"What an idiot," she said. "Well, Finn should be here soon, right? Detention doesn't go this late."

"Figgins once kept me until almost 8pm trying to talk me into going to Bible Club at his church. He said that as a teenage harlot, it was the only way to save me from burning in hell if I died anytime soon.

"What did he do to get detention?"

"He. . . you know, kicked over a trash can. Figgins happened to be walking down the hall. Karofsky may have been giving him crap, I don't know, or he might just have been walking and lost control of one of those tree limbs he calls his legs."

She shook her head knowingly. "I have got to get his coordination under control before prom or my feet will hurt too much to walk up and accept my crown."

"Riiigght. Anyway, soo, drink?"

"Yes. Wait. Actually, I'm not sure I want to drink anything from you if there are no witnesses. I think I'll wait until Finn gets here."

I smirked, because I enjoy when my reputation inspires paranoia. "That's fair, Fabray. But here, look." I poured a rum and Coke and took a long sip before offering it to her. "See, all clear."

"I still feel like the first victim in a serial killer movie who goes against her better instincts and winds up dead. I'm going to see where Finn is first." She took out her phone, which I promptly removed from her hand and replaced with the glass I was holding.

"Quinn, if we're going to be the only ones here for the next hour, I'm really going to need you to have alcohol in your system."

"Ugh, I can't believe this is even happening. But that's a good point."

"Uh huh."

As Quinn sipped at her drink and I turned around to pour my own, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Right on cue.

As Quinn turned to see Rachel ascending the stairs, I took the opportunity to switch off her phone and slide it deep into the couch cushions.

"Berry, you're early too," I said.

"Better and better," Quinn muttered, taking a longer sip of her drink.

"I thought you might need help setting up," Rachel said. "Hello, Quinn."

Quinn raised one hand limply to acknowledge Rachel's presence, and stared into her glass.

I gestured toward the arrangement of liquor on the coffee table. "I'm set up," I said.

"Oh, okay," Rachel said. "May I?"

"Help yourself."

Okay, so I never like to admit this outright, but Rachel Berry looked hot tonight. I think it was the lack of tights combined with the black skirt that fell right at the middle of her thighs. And no argyle anywhere, just a high-collared sleeveless white shirt. And I was guessing it was on purpose that if one happened to look hard enough, her red bra was visible through the fabric.

Yeah, I decided. That was intentional. Berry doesn't make mistakes like that.

"I thought you said you were never drinking again," Quinn said, not taking her eyes off her rum and coke as Rachel poured herself a glass of white wine.

"Don't be such a naïve little school girl, Quinn," Rachel shot back, and I almost spit out my drink. All things considered, his fake party was already worth the trouble.

"Everybody says that," Rachel continued, "after they have a traumatic experience with alcoholic beverages. Nobody actually means it."

Quinn's eyes went to Rachel for the first time, lingered long enough to convey her disapproval, then landed on me. "Santana, where's my phone?" she said.

"I handed it back to you," I said. "Come here and pick what you want for your next drink. Look, I spared no expense. Drinks fit for a Prom Queen." She touched each of her pockets absently, but immediately became engrossed in the liquor selection.

Rachel, meanwhile, was sidling along the walls of the room like it was a fucking museum display, nosing into all of the family pictures my parents had on display.

"Creep much, Berry?" I said.

"Oh, this is so cute!" she exclaimed, ignoring me entirely. "Oh, it's hard to believe but you all looked like such nice people back then," she said, almost to herself.

I stood behind her to see what she was talking about. It was a picture of me, Britts, and Quinn from middle school – probably sixth grade.

"I remember that day, actually," Quinn said, standing a few feet behind me. "It was graduation from our first cheerleading camp. Well, the first one together, anyway."

"My parents really need to cough up the funds to hire a decorator."

"Oh my God!" Rachel exclaimed, moving on to the entertainment system.

She turned to Quinn and me, wide-eyed. "You have Guitar Hero World Tour! I've always wanted to try one of these games where you're practicing for a career in music! You know, I've undertaken an extensive letter-writing campaign to lobby for a Broadway Star Hero," she said with a nod.

Quinn and I exchanged a slightly horrified look.

"So who wants to play?" she said with a terrifying smile.

"I'll play," Quinn shrugged. "My sister and I used to play this all the time before she went to college. I'm actually pretty awesome at it."

Rachel shoved her drink into my hand so that she could jump up and down and clap.

"Um, Santana?" Rachel said as they settled in to play. "You've already made Miis with our names?"

"What? I have creative impulses."

"I understand the nose, I suppose, but my mouth is not that large," she said, puffing out her bottom lip in a pout.

"It represents your personality."

"Yeah, and why am I wearing a monocle?" Quinn asked.

"I don't know, because they don't offer a stick for up your ass in the accessories section?"

"Can I sing first?" Rachel asked, practically salivating on herself.

"Sorry, rock star, the microphone is broken," I said. "Or more accurately, I broke it before I let you up here."

"That's too easy, anyway," Quinn said. "You play drums."

Rachel pouted again, tapping the drum pad tentatively with the sticks and wrinkling her nose in distaste.

"Let's do 'Eye of the Tiger.'"

"Quinn, really?" I asked.

"What? It's good."

Quinn really was awesome at it. Her fingers seemed to automatically know where to go before the patterns even appeared on the screen.

Rachel, on the other hand, seemed to have never heard of hand-eye coordination, or colors.

"Son of a bitch!" she yelled, as the audience started booing.

"Come on, Rachel!" Quinn laughed, "You have better rhythm than that, think of your dance lessons."

"Oh please, it doesn't always translate," I said. "I mean, Finn can play drums, but has zero skills at other rhythmic activities."

When they both turned to glare at me I said, "What? I meant dancing."

Four seconds later they were booed offstage.

"Damn it!" Rachel yelled again, shoving the drums off her lap and crossing her arms over her chest. "Percussion is inferior."

Quinn, on her third drink now, shook with laughter. "Let's try it again."

"No way, let's do a different song."

"How about La Bamba?"

Rachel scrunched up her face. "How about the Foo Fighters?"

Quinn scowled.

"Are you letting me win, Quinn?" Rachel asked as it became clear that Quinn's awesomeness level had dropped precipitously since the first song.

"NO." she said sharply. "It doesn't work like that. We're in the same band."

"She just sucks," I observed.

"Okay, fine," Quinn huffed as the audience boos reached critical mass, and the song ended. "My sister and I were only allowed to play four songs from the list because my dad thought all the others had lyrics that were. . . inappropriate. Or that the artists were obvious tools of Satan."

Rachel looked at her, appalled.

"It explains so much," I muttered.

"It's okay, Quinn," Rachel offered after composing herself, reaching over to pat her hand reassuringly. "I'm sure if it were a piano you'd be great."

Quinn removed her hand from under Rachel's and demanded, "Can we just try again please?"

"Okay, why don't you pick a song you actually like?"

"Ummmm," she said, scrolling through the list. "Pat Benetar?"

"Oh, it's on," Rachel affirmed.

About two hours later, they finally managed to finish a song, which was especially impressive given that they had now killed off an entire bottle of wine and the remainder of this cheap vodka I had been hoping to get rid of.

"Santanaaaaaa," Rachel said, pushing aside her drum set and galloping over to the recliner where I had sprawled out. She planted her ass in my lap, nearly knocking the wind out of me, and draped her arms around my neck.

"Tell me the truth – is the microphone really broken, or are you just being mean?"

"God, you would never know how bony your ass is to look at it, Berry," I said, shifting her center of gravity forward onto my legs while she cackled.

"Come on, Santanaaaaaaa, give us the microphone! This way you can play. We want you to play, right Quinn?"

"Eh," Quinn said.

"Well, I want you to play. Pleeeeassssse?" she said, bringing her lips right up against my ear and drawing out the "s."

"Okay, fine, if it will stop you from embarrassing yourself," I said, recoiling from where her breath tickled my neck, and sliding her off my lap. I stood her up, holding her steady until she found her legs again. "But I'm singing first. You bitches have to back me up."

"You're so whipped," Quinn murmured, shaking her head at me.

*

"Okay, I'm getting tired of these songs," Quinn said an hour later. "Let's look at the downloaded ones."

"No, I. . . we don't need to do that," I said.

Rachel and Quinn exchanged amused glances. "I'm sold, we're so looking," Quinn said.

"I so call vocals on the Pink song!" Rachel called out excitedly.

"I call the Pixies," Quinn said.

All of a sudden Rachel fell sideways, resting her forehead on Quinn's shoulder, body shaking with laughter.

Quinn giggled nervously and looked at me, puzzled. "You okay, Rachel?" she asked, her body rigid as though she didn't know how to move now that Rachel was touching her.

"Santana, you bought the song by Flo Rida and T-Pain?" Rachel finally gasped out, nearly falling over between Quinn and the back of the couch. Quinn stared at a spot on the carpet, a look of terrified amusement on her face.

"Whatever, that song gets me pumped for the club," I shrugged.

"It's from Step Up 2: The Streets," Rachel informed Quinn when she was right side up again. "I went to see it because I make a point of seeing every movie musical, no matter how awful."

"Of course," Quinn said. "Well, I think you should play drums again. You were just getting good," she said, setting the drum pads in Rachel's lap.

"Okay!"

"I'm sitting this one out," I said. "This is going to be way too white girl."

"Oh whatever, Santana," Quinn said.

"The biological definition of race and the US Census Bureau both categorize Hispanic people as Caucasian, Santana," Rachel said. "But if you want to start differentiating among ethnicities, well, I'm Jewish, so technically Quinn is the only white girl."

"I lived with Mercedes," Quinn said indignantly.

"Which I'm sure more than qualifies you to sing a god damn T-Pain song," I said. "Can we get on with it?"

I sat on the right arm of the couch, next to Quinn, to watch the train wreck. About halfway through the song I noticed something, and for the second time that night almost spit alcohol across the room.

I nudged Quinn's shoulder and nodded my head in Rachel's direction. Her head was bobbing in time to the beat, and her lips were moving frantically. To the words.

"Oh my god, Rachel," Quinn said. "Are you rapping?"

"Shhh!" Rachel hissed. "It helps me keep the beat."

Quinn doubled over, dropping the guitar to the floor. "Rachel Berry is rapping," she murmured into her legs. "This is the weirdest party ever."

"Focus, Fabray!" Rachel yelled, hitting the back of her head with a drumstick. "We're going to lose! Santana, help me!"

I picked up the guitar and finished the song. "Um, Berry?" I said when it was over, "How many times did you see that movie that you know all of the words?"

"Not that many," she said.

"Oh my God," Quinn said, wiping tears from her eyes. "Santana, do you have anything to eat? I think I clearly need food in my system."

"You know where the kitchen's at. Hey, bring me a PB&J!" I called after her as she headed down the stairs.

As soon as Quinn's footsteps disappeared into the house downstairs, I knew this was the moment I'd been waiting for.

I slid down onto the couch and turned to Rachel.

"Come here," I said.

She looked nervously at the stairs, smiled shyly, and shook her head.

"Yeah," I said. "Come here."

Again, a smile..

I grabbed her hips and pulled her onto my lap where she sat stiffly, resisting my attempts to pull her closer.

"Santana, Quinn is here," she whispered.

"Quinn's downstairs," I said, sliding the fingers of both hands into her hair and pulling her lips against mine.

It didn't take much. It never does. The resistance in her body burned away as her shy hesitation melted into soft, warm pressure along the length of my body. She arched her back to push her belly against mine.

I took my hands from her hair and unbuttoned the top four buttons of her shirt, sliding my hand inside the right cup of her bra. Her nipple went hard against the palm of my hand.

"Do you know what I would do to you if she weren't here?" I whispered against her mouth.

"What?" she panted.

"I would give you rug burns on your back from pinning you down and fucking you senseless on this carpet," I said.

She moaned as she shifted to push her center against my thigh.

I cursed myself for starting this shit when I couldn't finish it as I heard Quinn's footsteps coming back up the stairs.

"Time's up, Rachel," I said, as I shifted her off my lap.

Quinn emerged from the stairwell in time to see Rachel Berry stumble a few steps away from me, looking like she was pretty much more ready to be fucked than anyone in the history of the universe had ever been.

Her hair was tousled, with the once perfectly curled waves tangled together, and loose strands hanging in front of her face. Her lips were darkened with uneven color and her cheeks flushed pink. Her shirt hung from her body uneven and unbuttoned. The right side of her red bra showed, with the swell of her breast barely resting inside it, threatening to spill over and out.

At the top of the stairs, Quinn froze in place. Her lips parted and a dark red blush crept from her neck up to her cheeks as her sleepy, sedated eyes opened wide and fixed on Rachel.

The plate of sandwiches she'd carried upstairs tilted in her hand as she forgot she was holding it, and one of them fell to the floor.

I'd say my mission had been accomplished.

"I'm sorry, Quinn," Rachel said with a husky voice as she hurriedly buttoned her shirt. She raced across the room to help pick up the fallen sandwich.

Quinn found reality again when Rachel came into close proximity. "I've got it," she snapped. "Just back off."

Rachel stood up. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm so stupid. With you here and everyone else showing up any second. . . God, I'm such an idiot."

"Oh, would you grow up, Rachel?" Quinn spat at her. "It's 10PM. No one else is coming. Santana," she said, turning to glare at me, "orchestrated this to be the three of us from the very beginning."

"But. . . why?"

"I don't know," Quinn said. "But I'd like my phone back, please." She strode over to me and held out her hand.

I slid my hand down into the couch cushions behind me, eyes never leaving hers.

"You do know," I said as I set the phone in her outstretched palm.

Quinn glared. "No, I don't. Seven missed calls. Great. Finn probably thinks I'm dead."

"Did you notice how you didn't think to call him for four hours?"

She ignored me and sent a text message.

"Because I was drinking," she said finally.

"That always makes me miss people more," I said. "I mean, the people I actually care about, that is."

Her phone buzzed and she threw her hands up in exasperation.

"Perfect," she said. "Finn called my mom when he couldn't reach me, and when he found out I was here he went bowling with Burt, which means he can't come get me."

"Quinn?" Rachel ventured, her hair smoothed out and her shirt rebuttoned, but the distracting flush still playing at her cheeks. "Is it really so bad if you have to stay? I mean, I thought we were having fun." She gave Quinn an encouraging smile.

"God, I'm not going to be sober enough to drive for hours. Can we just watch TV or something? I'm tired."

"Sure," Rachel said, picking up the TV remote.

Quinn scrunched herself up in the corner of the couch, as far from me as possible, and took a bite of her sandwich. She handed the second to Rachel.

"Sorry, Santana," she said. "Yours fell on the floor."

"Fine," I said, and went downstairs to make my own sandwich.

By the time I got back upstairs, the room was dark except for the TV, which was turned to Animal Planet. Whether that was Quinn's idea or Rachel's idea for Quinn, I didn't ask.

Quinn, at least as far as I could tell, was already asleep. Rachel sat in the middle of the couch and took my hand as I sat down next to her.

I counted seven times I noticed her glance at Quinn before I fell asleep, too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

I woke up with a serious kink in my neck from sleeping doubled over the arm of the couch and a bruise where Rachel Berry's chin was digging mercilessly into the right side of my rib cage. I was about to look down to see if she'd drooled on me – it wouldn't be the first time – when I was distracted by the sounds of Quinn Fabray kicking shit all over my family room.

When I got my eyes open, she was bent over, peering behind the TV stand and mumbling under her breath.

"Of course," she said, standing up too fast and stumbling backwards, bringing one hand to her forehead and the other to the wall beside her to steady herself. "Son of a bitch," she muttered. "I had things to do today."

She started across the room back toward the couch and stubbed her toe on the coffee table, sending all the bottles of alcohol rattling against each other. "Son of a—"

"Morning, sunshine," I interrupted her with a smile.

She stood up straight and turned to face me. "I'm taking your shoes," she said matter-of-factly. "I can't find mine and I really need to leave."

"Whatever you need to do, Miss Congeniality," I shrugged.

"They look terrible on you," I added as she slid them on her feet.

She glared at me, and I swear to Christ I felt a chill.

"Santana. I don't pretend to have any idea about the way your mind works, and I don't know why the hell last night happened. But you and me? We're done. Cheerios is in the past and there are enough people in Glee Club that there is no reason for you and me to have to pretend to be able to stand each other anymore. Just. . . stay away from me. And stay away from Finn."

Jesus, this bitch be scary, and that's coming from me.

She glanced at Rachel, who had woken up and was blinking up at Quinn, alarmed.

"Never again," Quinn murmured to herself as she headed for the stairs.

I recovered in time to call after her, "It's cool though, you can tell people you spent the night on the couch with me. I know you need the votes!"

"What is going on?" Rachel asked groggily. "Should she be driving? Why is she so angry?"

I shrugged. "I know as much as you do. She kicked the coffee table, yelled at me, stole my shoes, and left."

She slid across the couch, away from me, and stared sullenly ahead.

"Awww, what's the matter, Berry? Reconsidering your career as the world's only female Jewish T-Pain impersonator?"

"I'm embarrassed," she said softly, "about last night."

"Oh come on, your rapping was only moderately painful. Although rest assured if you ever do manage to make it in the entertainment business I plan on finding a way to make money off the fact that it happened."

"Not about that," she said impatiently.

"Then, what?" I asked, sitting back and waiting.

She frowned, looking at me then away again.

"You know what. I let Quinn see me in my bra. With my hair all. . . messed up like that."

"So what?" I said. "She knows we're fucking. Why does that embarrass you?"

"Well, I don't know. It seemed to embarrass her."

"And that's your problem how, exactly?"

"I guess I feel like it ruined the night."

"Oh, please. Rachel, you and I had a blast last night. And up until that moment, Quinn did too. Just because she tries to build this Puritanical wall around herself doesn't mean we have to stop being ourselves. I mean, would you feel this way if it had been Mercedes or Tina?"

"I suppose not. Quinn does have a certain atmosphere of tension around her."

"Who is she to make you feel bad? I mean, look at you, Berry. Three months ago you were a pathetic virgin who'd never even had a drink. Now you're getting drunk and smoking weed and letting the hottest girl in school fuck you in the back seat of a car in the school parking lot. It's like spending time with me has made you halfway into a normal teenager – you're having fun. And then look at Quinn. What does she have? The same boy she dated over a year ago and presidency of the Celibacy Club."

Rachel winced at the mention of Finn. "That's a little ungenerous, Santana. She has lots of positive things. Like, a long list of friends. Her grades are spectacular – I mean, not as good as mine, but she'll get into a great university. And she's a shoo-in for prom queen."

"Prom queen?" I scoffed. "Who cares? That's like the highlight of her life right now, which means one thing – her life is god damn boring. She's so repressed that she never lets herself have any actual fun. Why do you think she's such a bitch," I looked at her pointedly, "to both of us?"

"Now that you mention it, I think she might be a little depressed. When she talks about the future it typically ends up in some kind of outburst, usually directed at me."

"Let me tell you something, Berry. I've been friends – or, whatever – with Quinn since we were ten years old. I know her better than anyone. And if you and me work together, by which I mean if you do what I say, we can get Quinn to be way more like she was last night, and way less like the scary ice monster who stormed out of here with my shoes a few minutes ago."

"You're really upset about those shoes, aren't you?"

"I would never have agreed to that, but I really thought a freeze ray might come shooting out of her eyes."

Rachel bit her lower lip pensively. "I suppose it would be good for Glee Club's morale if Quinn were a bit happier in general."

"Exactly what I was thinking," I said, sensing a victory. "It'll be good for Glee Club."

"And I would like to not be always trying to anticipate her next move against me so as to take the fear factor out of the equation; that would be a first since I met her."

"Hmm, so if I were to summarize your feelings for Quinn, I might say you're worried about making her uncomfortable, but you're angry at her. You're confused by and a little scared of her, yet you feel sorry for her."

She nodded. "I suppose so."

"That's a lot of feelings about one person. And it sounds like all you really want is for her to calm the fuck down so she can be your friend. Am I right?"

"Yes."

I smiled triumphantly. "Excellent. And I want her off my back. Berry, I believe what we have here is what they call a win-win situation. We'll call it Operation Defrost."

"But this 'operation'," Rachel said, eyeing me warily, "You're not going to torment, harass, or otherwise embarrass her, are you?"

I shrugged. "I don't have the details entirely worked out yet. I can't promise anything."

"What would I have to do?"

"Something you want to do anyway. Find ways to get her away from Finn and hanging out with us instead. I mean, clearly she won't do it even if I say pretty please, so it has to be up to you."

"Like it's any easier for me?"

"Where there's a will there's a way, Berry. Put on your shrunken head-sized thinking cap and go get her."

She sat up straight and pushed her chin into the air. "Okay, I'll do it."

"Fantastic."

"On one condition,." she said, turning to face me.

"Oh? What's that?"

"That you stop avoiding Brittany. The two of you barely speaking is just as serious a morale issue for Glee Club as Quinn's lashing out all the time."

I crossed my arms. Not part of the deal, Berry, I thought. She was ruining this.

"You have to at least try to be friends again," she continued, "You're miserable without her in your life, and I may be excellent company but I hold no illusions that I'm an adequate substitution. I know it won't be easy, but when Finn and I broke up I thought I could never stand to be around him again, and now we talk all the t—"

"You know what, Berry?" I interrupted her. "No deal. Forget it, because it's off. Brittany and I are not you and Finn. You don't get a say in this one."

She looked at me with big, hurt Rachel Berry eyes.

"Fine. I'm sorry, Santana," she said, mustering a trace of defiance in her voice. "I thought I'd earned the right to be able to talk to you about this, as your friend, after everything. But clearly you're just as closed off and stubborn as ever."

She started to get up from the couch and head for the bathroom. I threw my hands up. Jesus, the drama with this girl.

"Okay, hold up, Berry," I said, getting up from the couch too and grabbing her hand. "You know that's not true. But keep it real, here, you're not trying to talk. You're trying to push me, and I'm not down with that. So forget. Just forget the plan and let's just do what we do, okay?"

She stared down at her hand where I held onto it, then up at me with this inscrutable look.

"I suppose I can't in good conscience coerce you into doing anything you're not ready for."

"Do you want to watch House Hunters International?" I asked with relief. "I need ideas for when I have a house on every continent."

"Sure," she said with a small smile.

"But you know," she said as she settled against me on the couch. "Nobody says I need you to tell me how to be friends with anyone."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

When I walked into the choir room on Wednesday, Quinn and Rachel were sitting in the corner together, knees turned toward each other, whispering intently. It wasn't the first time I'd seen them like that this week, either.

It made me really fucking nervous.

There was no way they were sitting up there talking about songwriting. That little Jew was up to something.

I planted myself in the opposite corner of the room where I could keep an eye on them.

Puck climbed the stairs and sat next to me.

"What's going on over there?" he asked, gesturing toward Rachel and Quinn. "I thought they couldn't stand each other. And I keep seeing you roll your eyes at them."

"I have no idea," I said, trying not to make eye contact in hopes he would go away.

A look of intrigue spread across his face. "Has Quinn finally turned gay too?"

"Yes, that's it Noah, now you can bother her about a threesome instead, and leave me alone."

"Are you serious? Quinn stole your woman? Are you okay – I mean, you did kind of drunkenly freak out about that not too long ago."

I smacked the back of his head.

"No, and shut up. First of all, Rachel is not my woman. Second, they're probably just talking about writing terrible emo songs, or about how to be the worst members of the Celibacy Club ever."

"Are you sure, because I've seen what happens when you're threatened, and that is the mother of my firstborn up there. I need to know if I should be prepared to help her flee the country."

"Yeah, well, I'm not threatened. Berry and me are casual."

"So were we."

"Do you have a point, Puckerman?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. I couldn't figure out his angle here.

"Look, I heard through the grapevine that you're going through a rough spot."

"Oh, really?" I asked. "And who's the grapevine?"

"Just listen, all right? I know what it's like to lose the girl, and I'm taking a shot at this new life plan where I'm trying to be a good dude. So if you want to talk, I'm game. And if you want to get naked afterwards, I'm game for that too. For old time's sake."

I made a face which, in retrospect, probably wasn't very flattering to either of us..

He nodded. "That's not going to happen anymore, is it?"

"Yeah, no. It really isn't."

"Damn. Well the other part of the offer stands," he said as he stood up. "My ears work almost as good as my other stuff."

"I'm fine, Noah," I said. He shrugged and started to make his way down to the front row next to Lauren. "But. . . thanks."

He winked at me and sat down.

Well, that was all very heartwarming and everything, but there was still the little matter of figuring out what the hell Rachel Berry had up her sleeve. It was time to interrupt this little girl talk session.

"Yo, Berry," I called out.

She whispered something to Quinn and made her way across the top row of chairs, eyebrows raised expectantly.

"You want to tell me what's going on over there? I thought the plan was off."

"It is off. People can become friends without it being part of some grand scheme, you know."

"Well, good luck with that. I don't know why you think anything is going to change with her."

"Santana, I know you may be somewhat stuck within your own personal circumstances, but some people do make decisions which lead to change."

I gave Quinn a sideways look and shook my head. "You don't know what you're doing. I don't like it."

"Of course you don't. Because the truth is that even though you might still get what you want, you're not controlling it anymore. Look, you're the one who rejected the terms of the partnership, so I have to ask you to respect it. If you do, I don't see why it should make any difference in our relationship."

I scowled.

"In fact," she continued, stepping closer and running her index finger down over my nose and over my lips, "Why don't we plan an evening just for the two of us? How's Friday at your place?"

That was distracting.

"Fine," I sighed. I mean, what could I do about it anyway?

"Excellent!" she chirped, then leaned down to speak softly in my ear. "Wear the black. With the lace. You know the thing." And with that she turned and reseated herself next to Quinn across the room.

As weird as the first half of the day had been, it got even weirder at lunch.

I was sitting with Mike and Tina, minding my own business (or as close as I ever get), when Brittany approached our table.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey Brittany!" Mike said. "Umm, Tina! Maybe we better get going."

"Totally," she said, looking at her wrist even though there was no watch there. "It's almost time for. . . that thing."

"Do you mean sex in the janitor's closet again?" Brittany asked.

"What? No!" Mike said. "We have. . .a meeting."

"Asian-Ohioans meeting," Tina offered. "It's super secret. We could be shamed for even telling you other races about it. All right, bye!"

They grabbed their trays and walked off in a rush.

"I hope they know they're not fooling anyone, not even me," Brittany said, watching them go.

"Can I help you with something, Brittany?" I said, trying to slow my heart's pounding enough that she couldn't see it beating through my super tight dress.

"Rachel and Quinn said you wanted to talk to me."

"What? I don't. Pretty much exactly the opposite, in fact."

Instead, she sat down across from me.

"Santana, I miss you."

"BS, you just said you're only talking to me because Quinchel told you to. Go to hell."

"What Rachel said made me want to talk to you. Ever since she explained it to me, I think I understand a little better now why you're so upset, and why you stopped having sex with me. But," she trailed off, fiddling with her hands and staring down at the table top, "I have to ask you if you could try to be friends with me again. I miss holding your hand and vandalizing other people's stuff with you. It's not the same just having Artie."

"Well, that's the first intelligent thing you've said in weeks. But guess what, Britt? You can't have both anymore. When you stood there and listened to me tell you that I loved you, that was your moment to make a choice. And you did, and you know what? It was the wrong god damn one."

"But I'm not mad that you're having sex with Rachel Berry," she said. "I don't get the difference."

"Maybe the difference, Brittany, is that if you wanted to be with me, I would forget Rachel Berry's name. I know it, she knows it, and you know it. Or maybe the difference is that you don't actually give a shit about being with me. Because all of this? You missing me and us fighting? You did this. You pushed me to admit my feelings, and then when I did, you shot me down. Do you not get that it can never go back to how it used to be? And it's your fault."

She processed what I said in stunned silence.

"That's not fair, Santana," she said quietly. "I tried, like a million times. I asked you to be my girlfriend way back when we were thirteen. I always wanted to be a couple with you. Remember when I wanted to go for Halloween as Wall-E, and I wanted you to be EVE so we could hold robot hands like in the movie? You always said no. Just because you're finally ready doesn't mean I am."

"So I'm supposed to wait around? Or be the one you cheat with? Fuck that."

"It's not cheating when it's with you."

"Oh, grow up. I only told you that so you'd keep coming over. Sleeping with someone else is always cheating, it doesn't matter who it is. But you knew that. Maybe you should ask yourself why you did it anyway."

Her brow furrowed and her eyes looked at me so sadly that my stomach wrenched. That's nothing new; it has always caused me physical pain to see her sad. And all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her neck and tell her I took every word of it back. But I couldn't – there was no way to fix it. I can't touch her if I can't touch her. I can't hug her once and let her go back to him again.

So I sat on my hands and pretended to be angry.

And after everything I'd just said to her, and the way I was looking at her, she said, "I like talking about feelings with you, Santana. Even bad ones."

"That's great for you," I said, trying to keep my voice from breaking. "But the reality is that you're with him, and I need to move on. And I don't care what Rachel and Quinn tell you. I need you to leave me alone."

I got up from the table and tried to make it to the bathroom before I burst into tears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

At first I planned that the next time I saw Rachel Berry I would shave off one of her eyebrows.

And let's be honest, it would have been deserved. Not only did the conversation with Brittany that she set me up for turn out to be an utter disaster, but it totally made me lose my shit at school. I've had people wrongfully arrested for less.

But then I thought about it some more. And the more I did, I started to think I'd leave my razor blades at home after all. I mean, yes, she'd trapped and manipulated me, but maybe Berry'd also unintentionally done me a favor. Sitting across from Brittany at the lunch table had made me realize one thing – I was exhausted. I needed it to stop. I needed to move on.

And yeah, that realization had made me feel like the inside of my chest had been sucked into a supermassive black hole. But now the idea of not having to see or talk to Brittany one-on-one anymore made me feel, every once in a while, like I could actually inhale oxygen.

I mean, sure, it also made me feel like there was no point in doing so. But at least the stabbing in the pit of my stomach every time I laid eyes on her would be gone. Or less frequent, or something.

But that also meant the truth was – and god, if this wasn't rock bottom I don't want to know what was – that I couldn't just burn the Rachel Berry bridge. I still needed her. You know, for my plan. And she'd been hanging around me long enough now that I guess it was. . . comfortable. I mean, still usually obnoxious and infuriating, but comfortable.

It wasn't a lie, what I said to Noah about her. I was making no plans to get matching pagan tattoos or browse sperm donor catalogs. But somehow it had gone from unbearable to be around her unless we were having sex to an acceptable distraction to hang out with her even if we weren't.

So when I saw her in school the next day, instead of disfiguring her face like I would have done a few months ago I said, "Nice try, Berrylicious, but your little idea? It backfired."

"How so?" she asked. "I mean, ahem, what idea?"

"Well, I'll tell you, strawberry muffin. Your forcing me into a conversation with Brittany, even after you said you wouldn't, gave me the chance to tell her something I've needed to tell her for weeks."

Her eyes got big and excited. "That she's your soul mate?"

"No, Jesus Berry, use your brain cells. How would that have been backfiring? No, I told her to leave me alone. Oh and also, it might be easy to convince Brittany to do things, but you can stop trying to manipulate me. It's like Finn trying to teach Mike how to dance – it just makes you look ridiculous, and someone's probably going to end up in the hospital.

Anyway, see you Friday night," I added cheerfully at the end.

**

When Friday night rolled around, I was so ready to let loose. It had been five more days of the same old stress and bullshit, and I needed to knock it out of my system. And next to revving the engine of my dad's Benz at stop lights and goading people into drag racing with me, getting trashed and having sex with Berry is my favorite way to do that these days.

A few minutes before she was supposed to get there I changed into the "pajamas" she'd requested that I wear – my black lace bra under a see-through black nightgown that barely covered my ass. As I checked myself out in the mirror I debated putting on a thong, but then I figured I was barely going to have any of this on for more than a minute anyway, and decided against it.

This was a decision I would come to regret.

When she knocked and announced she was here I set down my drink, got up from my bed, and went to the bedroom door. I opened it to find Quinn standing next to Rachel with a look of horror spreading across her face.

"Santana!" she yelped, voice two octaves higher than I'd ever heard it before, and covered her eyes with her hand.

"Rachel!" I screamed, scooting behind the door to hide from view.

Rachel threw her head back and laughed her ass off, placing her hand on Quinn's shoulder to steady herself.

"That's for showing Quinn my bra last week," she said when she caught her breath, prancing across the room and daintily tucking her legs underneath herself in my pappasan chair. She fixed her eyes on me with a self-satisfied smile as I pulled on a pair of jeans, and Quinn hovered in the doorway with her hand pressed against her forehead, once again muttering to herself.

"Is that what you're wearing?" Rachel asked, her smile fading as I pulled a snug, white v-neck t-shirt on over my black bra.

"Try to control yourself," I smiled.

"Is it safe to come in now?" Quinn asked.

"Yes. And sorry, Quinn. I apologize that you had to be in the middle of that, but it had to be done," Rachel said matter-of-factly.

"So you didn't tell her I was coming? That's just great, because God knows I've missed feeling like a third wheel around Santana and her woman."

"She's not my woman," I said at the same time Rachel said, "I am not her woman."

She looked at us skeptically. "Regardless, I did not need to see what Santana wears when you two have your little 'get-togethers.'"

"She's just mad that now she won't be able to stop thinking about it," I said to Rachel.

So. This changed the plan for tonight. I mean, I'd been looking forward to fucking Rachel, but this could be interesting too. And I had to give Berry props – somehow she got Quinn into this room even after her official Ice Queen Proclamation of Santana Lopez Hatred last weekend.

I would have to do a little investigating. Oh, and also, have myself a little revenge.

"Guess this bottle for two is now a bottle for three," I said, twisting off the cap and pouring three servings into paper cups from the bathroom.

"Two drink minimum at this shindig, Fabray," I said, shoving a cup into her hand.

"I don't drink red wine," she said, pushing it back at me with an open palm. "It discolors your teeth."

I rolled my eyes into my skull and was considering dribbling the contents of her glass down the front of her shirt instead when Rachel chimed in.

"Trust me, Quinn, as a performer I know the importance of a dazzling smile. I have this excellent whitener I got from my dental practitioner. I'd be happy to share, so feel free to indulge."

Berry raised her eyebrows expectantly and looked from Quinn to the cup and back to Quinn.

Quinn sighed heavily and took the glass from my hand without looking at me.

Interesting.

"So, Berry," I said, turning to her. "I assume this is not your way of proposing a three-way. But you brought her here, so now what?"

"Well," she said, "I propose we increase our inebriation levels and go from there. Objections?"

Yeah, she was up to something.

"None here," I said, eyeing her over the top of my cup.

Rachel and I settled in on my bed and Quinn perched herself at the edge of my vanity chair, taking care to pointedly not look at either of us. I flipped on the television and over the next hour or so, the three of us proceeded to get nicely sloshed. Rachel slumped deeper into me with each drink, while her commentary on the channels we were surfing got ever louder. Quinn eventually drooped from a perch to a slouch.

"You can sit up here, you know," I said to her. "I'll try to not mistakenly grope you instead of Rachel. Although I can't promise the same for Berry."

Rachel cackled and limply smacked me on the arm.

"I'm fine here, thank you," Quinn said, realizing she had actually relaxed for a second and promptly straightening her spine.

"OOH, stop!" Rachel said, suddenly grasping the wrist of my left hand in a death grip. "Don't change it."

I looked at the TV screen, puzzled.

"Celebrity poker?" I said. "Really, Berry?"

"That's Shannon Elizabeth," she said, staring raptly at the television. "I like her."

My furrowed brow turned into a laugh as the realization dawned on me. "Wow, lezberry, congratulations. You just objectified your first female celebrity."

Rachel covered her face with her hands and giggled at me through her fingers.

"So you really do go for that traditional Maxim look," Quinn said, as if to herself, still gazing at the TV.

Rachel's grin faded and she spoke to the back of Quinn's head. "I don't know. I never really thought about my hypothetical type." Then she paused and added. "Why, would that. . . I mean, um, what would yours be?"

Quinn turned at looked back at Berry. "Not that," she said, holding Rachel's gaze for a second before turning back to the television.

It took all of the willpower in my body not to scream at them to make out already, for the love of Christ on a cracker.

But it was okay, because I was getting a better idea.

"Well, Berry," I said, "looks like this is all the more reason for you to make it in the biz. Maybe next time you can sit next to her and 'peek at her cards.'" I accentuated the last phrase with finger quotes.

She blushed. "I'd have to learn how to play, I suppose."

"You don't know how to play poker?"

She shook her head.

"What about you, Q?"

"No," Quinn sighed, "But I suppose you do."

"Of course I do. And I can teach you," I said with a shrug.

"And where did you learn to play poker?" Quinn asked.

"Uhh, Vegas?" I said, with my best what the fuck face.

I rolled off the bed and started digging through my dresser drawer for a deck of cards. "Get your wallets out," I said.

"Wait, we're playing for money?" Rachel asked.

"But you're the only one who knows how to play. You'll just take all of our money," Quinn said.

"If we don't play for money, what incentive will you have to learn?" I asked. When they didn't move I said, "Okay, fine, I won't play at first. I'll be the dealer."

Rachel and Quinn reluctantly fetched their purses and we sat cross-legged on the floor at the foot of my bed.

"Okay, let's see the cash," I said, dealing them each five cards.

They exchanged wary looks and handed me their money.

"This is pathetic," I said, dividing equally the $22 in fives and ones they had handed me. "You guys need jobs. Okay, so, this is called five-card draw. It's so super easy, even Finn could probably learn it."

I responded to their furrowed brows with my most innocent smile.

"Okay, next – shot," I said.

They stared.

"Come on, take a shot, it's part of the rules!" I gulped straight from the bottle of whiskey and passed it to Rachel, who took a swig, made a series of terrible faces, and handed it to Quinn, who cradled it in her hands in horror for a moment before Rachel's encouraging nod coaxed her into taking a sip.

"Okay, put two bucks in the center," I continued. "Come on, make it snappy, I don't have all night. Now, it's all about the combinations of cards you have. Pairs are good," I said, flicking my eyes to Rachel's chest and eliciting an eye roll of disgust from Quinn.

"Two pairs are even better. Three of a kind beats a pair and four of a kind is even better. Now, if you get a bunch of cards that all go in order, like three, four, five, six, seven, that's called a straight, just like Quinn here," I said, gesturing toward her with my head.

"A bunch of cards that are all the same suit is called a flush. I'll remind you what beats what as we go along, but suffice it to say that just like in life, higher is always better. The rest of the rules I'll tell you along the way.

The first decision is to look at your cards and decide if you want to quit right now and only lose two bucks, or bet more and see if new cards can help you out."

They each studied their cards.

"Okay, Q, let's go. Feel like raising the stakes?"

Quinn eyed Rachel, who was still squinting at her cards, puzzled. Quinn added a dollar to the stack at the center.

"You're up, Berry. Match it or lose."

Rachel looked at Quinn with narrowed eyes as she placed a dollar on top of the one Quinn had just added to the pile.

"Awesome. Q, how many new cards do you want?"

"Um, two."

"Berry?"

"I'd like three, please."

I handed out the cards. Quinn's face remained stony while Rachel's smile instantly faded.

"Berry, you are already terrible at this," I said. "Do you understand the concept of a poker face?"

"Maybe I was bluffing," she said indignantly.

"Right. Okay, Quinn, raise?"

Quinn added another dollar to the pile.

Rachel started to reach for another dollar when I grabbed her hand and set it back down on her knee, shaking my head.

"No, sweetie. Just no. I'm going to ask you to take another look at what you have in your hand. That's right, you have a two, a three, a five, an eight and a nine. And you have all four suits in there. That is utterly terrible. She folds," I said to Quinn. "You win."

"Yes!" Quinn exclaimed, neatening the pile of bills and adding them to her personal stash. "But wouldn't I have gotten more money if you hadn't stopped her? You can't cheat for her," she said.

"It was a teaching moment, Fabray."

I dealt another hand whereupon Rachel enthusiastically raised the stakes by $3, and Quinn matched her.

"I'd like two cards, please, dealer," Rachel said loudly and brightly.

Quinn held up three fingers.

Rachel practically vibrated in place when I handed her the new cards. Over her shoulder I could see she had three tens.

Quinn, peering at Rachel over the top of her cards, chewed her bottom lip. "I fold," she said, and Rachel's face lit up.

"I have three tens!" she said excitedly, splaying them out in front of her.

I rested my forehead in my palm for a moment and Quinn snickered.

"That's great and all, Berry, that you got your three dollars back," I said. "Congratulations. But you do realize that if you'd spazzed a tad less you could have gotten her to bet more money and then taken that, too."

"Oh," she said. "I have always been known for wearing my emotions on my sleeve."

"You don't say."

I dealt the next round and watched Rachel's face contort during the betting, which was amusing in a gruesome train wreck kind of way. As she tried to conceal her excitement and dismay from Quinn she had to force her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth under control, not always successfully.

Finally Quinn turned to me. "Can you make her stop? She's making my face hurt."

"Forget bluffing, I think you just found your new secret weapon, Berry."

Quinn won with a flush anyway, and Rachel lost five bucks.

"Crap!" Rachel said. "Am I losing just because of my face?" she asked Quinn, exasperated.

Quinn, smiling at her growing stack of dollar bills, said "You do have a few tells, Rachel."

"What is it? Is it my fake frown? The inability to stop my eyes from widening? Ugh, how am I supposed to become our generation's Meryl Streep when I can't even bluff my way through a poker hand?"

Quinn laughed. "It's just. . . well, honestly, it's your whole face," she said, shaking her head. "Your eyes are, sort of. . . very expressive. I mean, they've always—and your smile is, you know, there on your face, and – it's. . . yeah." She cleared her throat, mercifully stopping the stream of babble pouring from her face. "Santana, I need a drink, please."

I pressed my lips together tightly and literally bit down on my tongue to keep from saying a word. I poured Quinn a glass of wine and, for a second before I could stop it from happening, wished with all my heart that Brittany were here with me to witness what was going on with these two.

I chugged the glass of wine I'd poured for Quinn and had to pour two new ones.

While they were preoccupied with their drinks, I dealt the next hand from the bottom of the deck, carefully choosing each card out of the corner of my eye.

"These cards are terrible!" Rachel exclaimed. "I'm having terrible luck tonight. It makes me wonder what karma is punishing me for."

"Mine aren't bad," Quinn said. "Guess I've been nicer than you."

"Hey babies, this talking about your cards part is pretty much the opposite of what you're supposed to do in this game," I pointed out. "How about some bets, chicas?"

Quinn laid two dollars on the pile and Rachel matched her. Quinn picked up two cards and Rachel three, which were also, for some reason beyond my wildest imagination, completely unhelpful.

But she kept her face still this time, focusing her eyes steadily on Quinn.

Quinn pursed her lips and returned the stare.

They held each other's gazes in a standoff, Quinn patiently waiting for Rachel to hint at her intentions and Rachel trying to prove that she wouldn't break under Quinn's scrutiny.

It was getting boring. I yawned. Neither of them moved a muscle.

It was Rachel, of course, who squirmed first. It was ever so slight –just a blink and a tiny shift of her weight—but it was enough, and Quinn smiled slowly and added another dollar to the pile.

Rachel's resolve crumbled and she slouched. "Son of a bitch," she sighed. "I fold."

"Oh thank God," I muttered under my breath. "I thought one of you was about to get pregnant."

Rachel gave me a puzzled look, but Quinn, distracted by her win, let out another "Yesssss!" and gathered up her cash.

"But I did better this time, right?" Rachel asked hopefully.

"You're still pretty obvious," Quinn said. "Because I could tell how hard you were working."

Rachel sighed. "How do you stay so still?"

Quinn leaned forward. "You have to want that control more than you want anything else. More than your body wants to show how it feels. More than you want to laugh, or blink, or sigh, you want to win."

"I like winning," Rachel said poutily.

"Could've fooled me," Quinn challenged.

"Fine. Let's go again. This is an acting exercise that I intend to master before the end of this evening."

I dealt again. Now that they knew how to play, they only really needed me to tell them which hand had won if there was any uncertainty. Which I was more than happy to do.

"Quinn wins," I said after the next hand.

"What? Why?" Rachel asked in disbelief. "I have a pair of fours and a pair of nines! Quinn has threes and sevens!"

"Yours are diamonds and hearts, hers are hearts and clubs. One red suit and one black suit beats both red or both black, that's the rule."

Rachel huffed and Quinn looked at me with narrowed eyes. I poured more wine.

"Wow, all of these cards suck," I said at the end of the next hand. "But Quinn wins again with the high card."

"Wait a second, Santana, I have a king and Quinn has a queen. That means I have the high card!"

"Berry, when the player is a female, the queen is the higher card. God, don't be so sexist!"

This time Quinn definitely laughed, and covered it with a cough and another sip of wine.

I put the nail in Berry's coffin with the next round.

"Berry," I said exasperatedly, "It's illegal to keep your ace if you're drawing more than two cards. That's like cheating."

"How is it cheating? You dealt me this ace fair and square!"

"It's the best card, and you're holding onto it while I'm giving you brand new cards, which is an unfair advantage. Hand it over to Quinn."

"But this is five-card draw, and then she'll have six cards."

"I didn't make the rules up, Berry."

Quinn covered her mouth with her hand as she accepted the ace from Rachel. She won the game with a pair of aces.

"This is my last dollar," Rachel said sullenly as I dealt the cards yet again.

"Guess you better win," I said.

When Quinn raised the bet in the second round, Rachel looked at me desperately.

"I don't have anything to match her bet! Does that mean I lose again?"

"Well, normally it would," I agreed. "But I think, if Quinn is in agreement, that perhaps we can work out some kind of arrangement."

"Um, arrangement?"

"Yes. You can stay in the game. . . . if you take off something you're wearing."

"S-strip poker?" Rachel asked nervously.

"Mmhmm. I mean, I don't see what choice you have if you want to stay in the game and have a chance to win your dollar back, thus living to play another round and practice your card game acting, or whatever it is that you're doing with your face."

Rachel began unbuttoning the front of her sweater. Quinn stared at me in amused disbelief.

"I'm so dealing myself in now," I said after Rachel's sweater was deposited on the floor at the foot of my bed.

Twenty minutes later, Rachel Berry was sitting between me and Quinn Fabray wearing nothing but her bra, skirt, and underwear. And a really unhappy facial expression.

And she had just lost again.

Quinn and I were doubled over, dying of laughter.

"Do I have to win all of my clothes back before I can win the money back?"

"Yes," Quinn choked out. "Yes you do."

"Yeah, we're already being totally generous, Berry," I added. "We keep giving you that dollar back so you can buy your way into the game every time. They wouldn't do that on celebrity poker."

"So what does she have to take off now?" Quinn asked. "She did just lose again."

"Hmm, I don't know. What's it going to be, Berry? Naked on top or almost naked everywhere? I mean, I honestly can't decide – what do you think, Q?"

Quinn examined Rachel with a tilted head, biting her bottom lip, pondering this question.

Rachel's cheeks flushed as she suddenly became engrossed in the pattern of the throw rug beneath her legs.

"I think. . ." Quinn began slowly, "I think with the way Rachel plays poker that she might as well take everything off right now."

Rachel looked at her in disbelief and Quinn held her gaze, shrugging slightly.

I gave Quinn the first approving look I'd given her in probably three years, and raised my right hand. "All in favor?"

Rachel's jaw dropped open further and Quinn threw her head back in laughter. "No, wait, wait," she said, waving her hands in front of her. "I'm just kidding, Rachel."

"I wasn't," I said.

"Come on, you've had your fun, Santana. I think we should let her off the hook. Besides, I'm worried if she takes anything else off you won't be able to control yourself."

"Truth," I said. "Then how about this: despite the fact that you lost again, Berry, you don't have to take anything else off. But you can't put anything back on, either. Not until we say so."

"Fine. It's a deal," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "If Quinn smokes a joint."

"Interesting proposition, Berry. I believe we've just upped the ante. What say you, Fabray, are you in? Or do you fold?"

"Wait a second," Quinn said indignantly, "How does Rachel have any bargaining power here? She's the one who keeps losing."

"I'm the dealer, and I've okayed it," I said.

"And what if I say no?"

"If I might make a suggestion, dealer?" Rachel chimed in. "I'd like to point out that Quinn here is the only one of us to not have paraded around this room in her bra this evening. Maybe she would prefer that option to indulging in cannabis."

Quinn looked at me in disbelief. "Has she always been like this, or is this your influence?"

I smirked. "I can work wonders, but only if the raw materials are there."

Quinn looked from me to Rachel then back to me. "Fine. Okay, fine! I'll smoke."

Berry leapt to her feet and threw her hands up excitedly. "I'll get it!" she said, and made a beeline for my bottom desk drawer.

"I have got to move my stash," I muttered.

Quinn watched her every move as Rachel expertly rolled and lit a joint, then dramatically took a long drag on the cigarette, craning her head back and exhaling a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.

"How often do you do this, Rachel?" Quinn asked. "Don't you worry about what the smoke does to your voice, and your lungs?"

"I have weighed the benefits and consequences, Quinn, and came to the conclusion that the stress relief and social bonding afforded by the occasional marijuana cigarette come with risks that are negligible in the short term. Also, I'm usually highly intoxicated when I make this decision.

And anyway, sometimes, Quinn," she said, leaning towards her, "You just have to say fuck it and do something that feels good."

She held the joint to Quinn's lips.

"It's okay, Quinn," she said. "You'll like it, I promise."

But Quinn seemed frozen, or transfixed by the wisps of smoke winding their way toward the ceiling, which was really annoying because she was totally wasting my weed.

Undeterred, Rachel reached down and took her hand, bringing it to the cigarette and transferring it into Quinn's fingers. "I was nervous too," Rachel said reassuringly. "Hey wait," she added suddenly, "Why is your skin so clammy? And why are you breathing so fast? Are you having some kind of cardiovascular incident? Oh God, you're also flushed. Santana, get my phone!"

"I'm fine," Quinn said, too loudly. "I'm flushed because I'm drinking. And I'm just trying to, like, increase my oxygen levels so I can hold my breath longer."

"Ohhh, excellent initiative, Quinn," Rachel nodded.

This was seriously like watching a bizarre mating ritual on the Discovery Channel.

Quinn shifted her eyes to Rachel's, and Rachel responded with an encouraging smile.

Her eyes not leaving Rachel's, Quinn gingerly readjusted the joint in her hand, placed it between her lips, and took a tiny breath. She held the smoke inside her mouth, puffing out her cheeks.

"Well that's just great, Quinn," Rachel observed. "Now your mouth can get high. But what about the rest of you? You have to actually inhale, and hold it down. Here, watch Santana."

She handed me the joint and I demonstrated my expert technique. For real, I can hold my breath for like three minutes.

"Now, here," Rachel said as she took the joint back from me. "Lay down on your back, because it expands the lung capacity."

Quinn obliged, and Rachel knelt on the bed beside her. "Okay, now inhale and hold. Good!" she said, cheering Quinn on. "Hold.. . . hold. . ." she repeated as Quinn's eyes widened.

"Okay, exhale!"

Quinn coughed out a puff of smoke so hard her stomach muscles forced her into a sitting position.

"Much better," Rachel said approvingly. "Now just keep doing that until the cigarette is so small that is almost burns your fingers. Then you'll feel really good. And possibly hungry."

"You deadbeats need to help me pay for that," I warned.

"I can't, Quinn has all my moneeeeey!" Rachel said cheerfully. "Santana, put on music. I want to sing," she demanded happily, careening across the room and landing against me, then throwing her arms around my neck.

"No singing, Berry. I really don't want my parents coming up here asking me why I'm torturing the neighbors' cat again."

"Dancing?" she asked, just as brightly.

"Whatever. Put on music yourself since you seem to be so damn comfortable taking over my shit."

She clapped and then bounced her way over to my computer. "I make excellent party playlists," she said to no one in particular.

Quinn lay on the bed, getting thoroughly stoned.

Rachel continued to bounce around my room, this time in a rhythm moderately aligned with the ambient music.

When there was a knock at my door she bounced right on over and grabbed the doorknob without a second thought. Quinn bolted upright.

"Berry, wait! It could be my moth—"

Then the door swung open and I realized it was much worse than that.

"Brittany!" Rachel exclaimed happily, throwing her arms around the new arrival's neck. "You made it!"

Brittany's eyes met mine over Rachel's shoulder.

"Wow," she said, looking from me to half-naked Berry to stoned-off-her-ass Quinn.

"Looks like I'm missing an awesome party," she said with a smile.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

I'm not sure which feeling was stronger – the constricting panic in my chest or the blinding rage pulsing through every single one of my veins.

My mouth went dry and my face got instantly hot. Rachel's smile collapsed as soon as she looked at me, and Quinn stared out from the bed wide-eyed, fingertips against her lips. The two of them exchanged a look of panic, leaving no doubt in my mind that they had conspired to set up this entire situation.

"You two think you're funny?" I asked quietly. "Is this a joke to you?"

I turned to Brittany. "Didn't I make it very clear that I don't care what they tell you? That I don't want to see you?"

"Santana. . ." Quinn started to say.

"It's okay, Quinn," Brittany interrupted. "I'll go."

"Good," I said. "And take them with you."

I crossed to the far corner of the room and leaned against the wall with my arms folded across my chest, staring them down. Brittany squeezed Rachel's hand and gave her a small frown before turning to go. Rachel shot Quinn an urgent look, sending Quinn sliding from the bed glassy-eyed, floating to Brittany's side.

Rachel approached me timidly.

"Santana, I'm – we're sorry," she said softly. "I invited Brittany not to hurt you but in the hopes of fostering a conversation. I think you know this is not a joke to me. Nothing could be further from the truth."

"Rachel, I can't be friends with you if you're going to keep doing this to me."

"I see now that I shouldn't have. Quinn and I . . . we thought that if we could get you relaxed and having fun first, maybe it would be okay if Brittany joined us. I'm sorry," she said again.

"But also," she added, turning to look over her shoulder and make sure Quinn was occupied with Brittany, "It helped me to get Quinn here tonight. Honestly, I don't think anything else I said would have worked. And now look at her – it's just like what you wanted. I mean she's drunk and completely stoned, and we haven't even gotten her talking yet or anything," she said with a smile. "Santana, you have every right to be mad, but please don't end this night. Please, I'm having so much fun."

I looked at Brittany and Quinn, who were leaning against opposite sides of the door frame, holding each other's hands, smiling and talking. It was true, this was not the normal Quinn. It was like a picture from an older, simpler time. And if the goal was to get inside her walls, well, the night was only just beginning.

"Fine. But you owe me big time, Berry. We're talking I get to do whatever I want next time you actually show up here alone."

"When have I ever stopped you?" she asked, leaning in to press herself against me.

I smirked, but it faded quickly from my face as I realized what exactly I was agreeing to. "Just, please, keep Brittany occupied. Don't expect me to talk to her."

"Done," Rachel said, and kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you." She skipped over to Quinn and Brittany, who were helping themselves to shots of Jack Daniels.

I sipped my own drink and watched the three of them talk and laugh. That used to be me instead of Rachel, I thought, only a few short years ago. Excited just to be spending time with my new friends. Falling in love and not even knowing it.

If anything ever did happen between Rachel and Quinn, they would remember this night as part of the beginning, and I was sure of that. At least Rachel would, I corrected myself. Quinn was super wasted.

When the Black Eyed Peas came on Rachel's party playlist, she set down her drink and started bouncing around the room again. And because my life is not difficult enough, now Brittany joined her.

I wanted to look away, I really did. But Brittany put her hand on Rachel's hip, drawing her in so they were dancing together, closer, and Rachel was throwing back her head in laughter.

"Your mouth is open," Quinn's voice drifted through the haze that had suddenly enveloped my head. She leaned against the wall next to me.

"They make a funny pair," she said amusedly. "They're so. . .like, opposite. Tall and short, blonde and brunette, graceful and . . . well, I don't know what you would call that."

I took another sip of my drink. Quinn turned her head to look at me with her glazed-over eyes, then turned back away.

"I think. . . I think I owe you an apology," she said.

"Careful, Fabray," I said. "You're like literally on crack right now. Don't say anything you're going to regret."

"No, it's true," she said. "I thought you were just using her but you're actually sort of. . . friends."

"Wow, imagine that. Your snap judgment turned out to be wrong," I said in a low monotone.

"She's worried about you."

"I know, it's all a clever ploy for sympathy sex," I deflected.

Quinn never had a chance to respond to that, because out on the apparent dance floor Brittany had now wrapped one hand around Rachel's back and was holding her close, grinding against her.

"Ohhh my God," Quinn murmured, "What is happening?"

Rachel kept up, at first. She turned around to let Brittany grind against her ass, and raised her hands above her head so Brittany could run her hand over her stomach. But by the time that was done, she was laughing so hard she could barely stay upright.

Brittany let go of Rachel's waist, but only so her hands were free to start unbuttoning her own shirt. She peeled it from her shoulders, revealing the tank top beneath, and dropped it to the ground. Rachel covered her face with her hands. Brittany started sliding her fingertips under the hem of the tank top, raising it ever so slowly up her stomach, teasing Rachel. Rachel's eyes followed her fingers, transfixed.

"Um, how many drinks has she had?" I asked Quinn, after three attempts at getting my voice to work.

"I don't know, a few shots."

"Okay, that's it," I said, covering the distance between me and the computer in a few steps and turning off the music. "We're going out."

***  
>"Out?" Rachel asked, startled by the sudden change in circumstances.<p>

"Santana, we were just playing," Brittany said.

"Out where?" Quinn asked. "It's 11PM."

I ignored Brittany. "I didn't realize you preferred parties with a curfew, Granny Fabray."

"Are your parents going to let us?" she asked.

"Does it look like my parents factor into my decision-making?" I replied, gesturing around the room. "Put your shirt on, Berry," I said, glaring at Brittany.

"You," Rachel said breathlessly as she pulled her shirt over her head, "Are a very lucky woman, Santana." She fanned herself with her hand. "Oh my God, I'm warm. It's warm."

I stuck my index finger in her face. "I can have a hit put out on you at a moments notice, Berry. Don't ever forget that. One phone call, that's all it would take."

As I slid on my jacket, Brittany, once more fully-clothed, went to the back window. She unlocked it, slid it open, and propped it up with a heavy book that sat on the corner of my dresser.

"This is my favorite book," she said with a smile to Quinn and Rachel, who had gravitated toward our obvious escape route.

"What's it about?" Quinn asked dreamily.

Brittany furrowed her brow, clearly confused as to why Quinn would ask such a thing. "I don't know, I've never read it."

Rachel leaned over and whispered to Quinn, "I think she means because it lets her and Santana sneak in and out of this room."

"Yeah, I got that," Quinn said.

I threw my leg over the sill and squeezed out the window, lowering myself to the garage roof below, then the tree branch right below that, and finally to the ground.

"You should see her do that in six-inch heels and a miniskirt," Brittany said, watching me from the roof. "It's totally hot."

Rachel nodded.

"Brittany, I'm still not talking to you, but can you help these two lightweights get down in one piece?" I called up to her. "The last thing I need is for my parents to get sued and have to sell my car."

She spotted Quinn and Rachel each step of the way while I waited on the sidewalk, taking sips from the flask I kept in my inside jacket pocket. I really couldn't get through this if my buzz faded.

When they had assembled behind me on the sidewalk, I turned and started walking without saying anything. Rachel trailed a few steps behind, and the other two followed, Quinn leaning on Brittany so that she could crane her neck and stare at the stars.

At first we walked in silence except for crickets and the occasional passing car's thumping bass.

"It's so pretty out here tonight," Quinn said, enraptured. "The fog makes everything look mysterious."

"Hey, we wrote that!" she exclaimed suddenly, reaching forward to smack Rachel's arm playfully. I thought she was responding to the voices in her head, because I didn't even realize that Rachel had been singing to herself. I guess I had gotten used to it.

Rachel spun around, beaming. "I've been working on it," she said. "I'm so happy you recognized it."

"Of course I did, that's so awesome," Quinn drawled. "I've been thinking about those songs so much, Rachel, and I think even though they're not for Glee Club, we should finish them."

"I couldn't agree more," Rachel said quietly.

I broke my own rule and looked over my shoulder. I had to gauge Brittany's reaction to this conversation. She was already looking at me, a knowing smile spreading across her face. I gave her a small nod before turning back around.

Rachel, buoyed even further than her already-hyper state by the conversation with Quinn, skipped ahead to catch up to me.

"So where are we going, fearless leader?" she asked way too cheerfully, considering the last thing I'd said to her was a death threat.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"That's okay, I don't even care," she said, linking her arm in mine and laying her head on my shoulder.

I couldn't help but smile at that. She was so happy, and she didn't even know why.

"Want a drink, dwarf?" I asked, handing her the flask.

In actuality, I knew exactly where we were going. There were only two places with food in walking distance of my house, and I had a serious ice cream craving.

"I know where we're going," Brittany said, tapping Rachel on the shoulder. "We're going to Bob's."

Quinn let out a moan of happiness. "Oh my God, they have the best chili dogs! I'm sooooo hungry!"

Rachel frowned.

"Sorry, Berry, that there isn't any kosher vegan cuisine in walking distance of my house," I said.

"It's okay, Rachel," Quinn said. "They have really good fries, too. And big, squishy pretzels with honey mustard or cinnamon sugar. Crap, now I don't know what to get."

"You know, Quinn," Rachel said, "Finn says that you're an angry drunk, but I've seen no evidence of that assertion thus far."

"He said what?" Quinn asked, lifting her head from Brittany's shoulder.

"I think it's because she's also higher than my grandma that time I accidentally gave her three of her oxycontin at once," Brittany offered.

"My head does kind of feel like my foot when it falls asleep," Quinn admitted.

I handed her the flask of whiskey. "Here, this will help."

**

We got to Bob's around midnight and brought our food out to the picnic benches that lined the parking lot, since inside it was full of drunk, obnoxious high school students. As opposed to the classy drunk high school students like ourselves.

Quinn and I sat on top of one table and Rachel and Britts sat on the other, facing us.

Rachel, eyeing my ice cream sundae, Quinn's chili dog, and Brittany's fries and chocolate shake, asked, "Did you guys eat like this when you were Cheerios?"

"Noooo way," said Quinn.

"We weren't supposed to, but Santana told me it didn't count if you were drunk," said Brittany.

I shrugged, "It doesn't."

"It feels so amazing out here," Quinn said, looking up at the sky. "The breeze is like, the perfect temperature. Did you guys see the moon while we were walking here?"

Rachel smiled her stupid face off.

"So Rachel, are you still having sex with Santana?" Brittany asked, without even allowing an acceptable pause in the conversation.

Rachel's mouth dropped open, showing us her chewed up pretzel.

Quinn launched into a giggling fit.

"Britt!" I exclaimed.

"What? Quinn was talking about nice things, so I thought of it. It's not like any of us didn't know. So spill, Rachel."

Rachel looked at me nervously. "Well, um. . . I guess so. But, not as much any more."

"Oh," Brittany said, processing this information. "Well if you're getting bored I can tell you some tricks. For example," she said, leaning closer to Rachel, "You should try pulling her hair."

"Oh, totally," Rachel said breathlessly. "Yeah, I found that one on my own."

"I am right here!" I said incredulously.

Quinn nearly fell off the picnic table.

"Her boobs are awesome, aren't they?" Brittany observed.

Rachel enthusiastically nodded.

"You guys know they're fake, right?" Quinn asked when she was able to catch her breath.

"It really doesn't matter," Rachel said, and Brittany shook her head solemnly.

I pulled my jacket tighter around myself, hoping that this line of conversation was over, but knowing Brittany was probably not going to let it go any time soon. She really liked talking about it, and never quite understood when it was inappropriate.

"Oooh! Rachel, I thought of another one," she said. "When you're going down on her, you should—"

"Nooooooo, no no no no no, la la la la," Quinn burst out, covering her ears. "Okay, I will seriously throw up that chili dog on the next person to talk about having sex with Santana."

Brittany leaned over to Rachel and whispered loudly, "I'll tell you later."

Rachel nodded excitedly.

Another few seconds lapsed and I thought maybe she would let the topic expire, but no.

"Rachel?" she asked.

"Yes?" Rachel asked, slightly terrified.

"Do you taste like berries down there? I asked Santana but she never answered me."

Quinn and Rachel looked at her in amazement.

"No, Brittany," I said. "Just. . . no."

Shaking my head, I got up from the picnic table and took my trash to the cans behind the restaurant, and sipped from my flask while I waited for them to follow me.

"I know where we're going next," Brittany said as they caught up to me.

"Where?" Rachel asked.

Brittany gestured toward the line of trees about a hundred yards from where we were standing. "The Lima Heights Country Club is on the other side of those trees."

"Lima Heights has a country club?" Rachel asked me amusedly. "And you live in walking distance of it?"

"What? It's not like we're members."

"We always asked her parents if they would join so Santana and me could use their swimming pool, but her mother says she doesn't want to be the token Hispanic family, lending the club a claim to diversity it hasn't earned," Brittany helpfully clarified.

We pushed through the trees and stood at the edge of the golf course, passing the flask of whiskey around.

So I know it sounds weird, but I love this place at night. It's pitch black except for the moon and a little light from the streets nearby, and it's like these big open spaces with rolling hills and little lakes. At night everything is shades of navy blue. And most importantly, it's so damn quiet and deserted. Other than my room, which gets totally stifling after too long, it's like the only place I can be alone. Or not alone, if I want.

"It's so dark," Rachel remarked, a little anxiously, as we began walking along the line of trees.

"It's beautiful, actually," Quinn said. "But. . . can we get in trouble for this?"

"Are you always like this," I asked, "Or is it the pot making you paranoid?"

"I'm always like this."

"Have you ever even been in trouble? I mean like, aside from your disappointingly mammalian bastard child?"

"That's not enough trouble for you?" she asked wryly.

"Frankly, no. I mean, what about just normal, fun, teenager trouble? Like getting caught smoking in the bathroom, or making out under the bleachers, or shoplifting a cheap pair of earrings?"

"Or adding laxatives to the coffee pot in the teachers' lounge?" Brittany suggested.

I smiled before I could stop myself. That one had been worth the three-day suspension.

Sadly, my needling of Quinn was interrupted by a rustling in the trees ahead of us.

"What was that?" Rachel asked, stopping in her tracks.

"I didn't hear anything," said Quinn.

"I did," I said.

"I hope it's a leprechaun," Brittany whispered.

As the four of us stood stock still, hoping to hear nothing, a pair of beady eyes emerged from the trees about ten feet from us, followed by a furry, striped body and long ringed tail.

I screamed and clutched the person closest to me.

Rachel screamed and clutched Quinn.

Placing herself between me and the small monster, Brittany swung her purse threateningly, chanting "Go away!" until it changed course and ambled back into the brush.

Keeping her arms wrapped around Rachel, Quinn laughed. "Poor thing! It was just minding its own business, and we probably scared the daylights out of it!"

"Well, it needs to be taking its business elsewhere," I said, trying to compose myself. And recover from the way Brittany smelled. God damn it.

"Are you going to be okay?" Quinn asked Rachel, releasing her grasp only when Rachel nodded her head slowly.

"But perhaps we should continue our walk further away from the vegetation and the woodland creatures therein."

Quinn let go of every part of Rachel except her right hand as we walked out into the golf course.

"Shit," I said a moment later. "Liquor's gone."

Brittany proudly pulled a bottle of vodka from her purse and handed it to me. "I know it's rude to come to a party empty handed," she said. "Especially one you weren't invited to."

I opened it wordlessly and took a drink, passing it around.

"Thank you, Brittany," Rachel said.

"No problem, Rachel. Hey, Santana, I think this is the sand trap where we had sex after Homecoming last year! Please don't throw up on me, Quinn."

"Oh, totally," I said with a smirk. "When my mother found my dress full of sand I had to tell her the dance had a beach party theme and I was practicing my breakdancing."

"Guys," Quinn said, "As much as I hate to interrupt this particular conversation, I kind of have to pee. Is there a bathroom?"

"In the middle of a golf course?" I said.

"Don't the old men who golf here drink beer all day?" she asked. "They must go somewhere."

"Probably in those bushes we were just walking through," I said. "Go ahead, we'll wait."

"I can't do that," she said. "I'm not scared of a raccoon, but what if there are snakes? Or bears?"

"I'll go with you," Rachel offered.

I looked at Rachel in a panic. What was she thinking? "No way," I said. "I'll go with her."

"I am not peeing in the raccoon's house," Quinn said definitively. "There must be a clubhouse."

"And I'm sure it's locked," I said. "It's one o'clock in the morning. And if it were open, they wouldn't let the likes of you in, anyway."

Quinn looked around desperately. "Over there!" she said. "It looks like a maintenance shed. I bet there's a bathroom for the grounds crew, or at least a sink."

"You would rather break into a maintenance shed and piss in a sink than just squat in the bushes?" I said.

"Yes."

She started running down the hill, and the rest of us followed. Rachel stumbled, nearly faceplanting on the fairway.

"I need more vodka!" she yelled.

Brittany and I picked her up by either arm and escorted her the rest of the way down the hill.

Quinn tried the door to the shed, finding it locked. She rummaged in her purse. "Does anyone have a flashlight or something?"

"Yeah, right here in my back pocket," I said, rolling my eyes.

Rachel pulled her keychain, complete with a pocket flashlight, out of her purse. She smiled brightly at Quinn, then looked concerned. "Be careful Quinn, there's a vial of mace on there too."

"She'll probably need that for all the rats running around inside," I said.

Holding Rachel's flashlight in her mouth, Quinn continued digging through her purse until her hand emerged victoriously clutching a nail file and a straightened paper clip.

"Vodka," she said.

I handed her the bottle and she took a long gulp.

"Okay," she said.

"I'm totally scared of you right now," Brittany said in hushed awe as Quinn went to work on the lock.

"Got it!" she exclaimed, turning around to face us with a victorious smile. Brittany clapped.

Quinn disappeared inside.

"Don't turn the light on," I warned. "Someone will see that."

"I'm not stupid," she replied. "Oh, thank God! There's a toilet. We have a toilet!"

Rachel leaned against me, laughing hysterically. "We have a toilet!" she repeated, throwing one hand in the air victoriously.

We all took turns peeing, since we were there.

"Can we get out of here now?" Rachel asked after everyone had done their business. "This house is so creepy."

"House," Quinn laughed.

"Not yet," I said. "Not until Quinn steals something."

She looked at me witheringly. "What, is breaking and entering not badass enough for you?"

"Motivation by bladder is invalid."

"But I don't want any of this stuff," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Not the point of the exercise."

"Fine," she said, looking around. Then, in the corner, she spied a broken golf club, its handle bent at a 45-degree angle. She picked it up and walked nonchalantly out the door.

"I'm not so sure that was a good idea, Santana," Brittany whispered. "Now she has a weapon besides vomit."

**

When we got back out into the open space of the course, I found a nice flat spot in the short, groomed grass of the fairway, and sat down. Unbeknownst to my travel companions, while they were distracted by Quinn walking out the door with a golf club, I had taken a little something of my own.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out a can of black spray paint.

"Gather round, ladies. We're going to play a little game," I said. "I like to call it, 'Name that Gleetard.'"

Three gasps turned into disbelieving glances and nervous giggles as I shook the can of paint and removed the cap.

I drew a big, black circle right onto the grass. Then I added a few lines to represent hair, two dots for eyes, and two gigantic horizontal ovals where the mouth would go.

"Oh my God, it's Sam," Quinn said, her voice shaking. "Santana, you are so terrible."

"Then why are you laughing your ass off?" I said. "Anyway, it's not mean if it's a caricature."

For extra added measure, I drew smaller circles, representing bubbles, coming from my drawing's mouth.

"Now it's mean. And that's how you play," I said. "Okay, who's next?"

Quinn and Rachel looked at each other, then at me, and shook their heads.

"I'll go," Brittany said. I handed her the can.

"You can't draw your cat," I said.

Brittany's drawing, though not a cat, had very few distinguishing features. In fact, it was basically a small oval drawn in what would be the mouth area of a larger oval.

"Soooo. . . it's someone with a big mouth," Quinn said.

Brittany nodded emphatically.

"That could be a lot of people, Britt," I said. "If it's Berry you should definitely add the nose."

"It's not Rachel. I don't really remember what this person looks like, all I can see when I think of them is their mouth yelling at me."

"How about an accessory?" Quinn asked, "Like something they have with them all the time?"

She thought for a moment, then her face lit up. Next to the big, yelling oval, she drew a small figure with short hair and glasses. And then a cannon.

Rachel and Quinn giggled hysterically, using it as an excuse to grab onto each other's hands and arms.

"Brittany," I said, "Coach Sylvester isn't in the Glee Club."

"She told me never to believe that."

Quinn patted Brittany on the head.

Rachel took the can of spray paint. "Okay, my turn," she said.

Rachel drew a small head and enormous arms. "It's Puck!" Quinn called out as Rachel added the strip of hair on his head. "Wait, you drew a shirt but no pants, was that intentional?"

"Just keeping it real," Rachel said.

"Berry, don't say that, you can't pull it off." I said. "And besides, you only kept it real in a Ken doll kind of way. I mean, if you need help with the details, any one of us can help you out," I said, reaching for the can of paint.

"Nooooo!" the three of them said in unison.

"And I could not help you with that," Quinn said. "I never even saw anything."

"Why, is it more of a sin when you look at it?" I asked.

"Can we move on?" Quinn said. "Anyway, it's my turn."

Quinn, taking fucking forever because she couldn't stop laughing for four seconds, drew a big head with short hair and a small pot belly.

"That's Finn," Rachel said, grinning.

"Hold up," I said, "Not yet it isn't."

I took the paint from Quinn and added two small breasts to the drawing.

"Now it's Finn," I said.

"Nooooo!" Rachel cried as she and Quinn fell backwards onto the grass together in fits of laughter.

"That's keepin' it real," I said.

"I want to draw Jacob Ben-Israel," Brittany said. "His hair is mesmerizing."

She took the paint and drew a circle with glasses and a massive, fuzzy ball of hair.

"No, give me that," I said. "Why do I have to be the one to make everything accurate?"

I drew an erection on Brittany's stick figure of Jacob and extended his arm to reach it. "That's for you, Berry," I said.

"So gross," said Brittany.

"Eeeeeeeeew!" Rachel said, burying her face in the collar of Quinn's shirt. Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel, eyes squeezed shut in laughter.

"Oh my God," Brittany mouthed to me with wide eyes and a smile.

"I know," I mouthed back.

"Santana, your privileges are revoked after that," Quinn said, regaining her composure. "Give me that."

She drew a figure with slightly less fuzzy hair than Jacob and added an "X" over the chest.

"It's Mr. Schuester and his vest," Rachel said. "But I know what Santana would add."

I watched as Berry drew a figure with long hair kneeling in front of him.

"Wait, wait, wait," I said. "Is that supposed to be Holly or Miss Pillsbury?"

"Depends what day it is," Rachel shrugged, leaning against Quinn, quite proud of herself.

"Crap, the can is empty," Quinn said disappointedly. "Hey, you guys don't think we can get identified by the people we drew, do you? Like maybe they could trace it to us by process of elimination?"

Rachel, Brittany, and I erupted into new rounds of laughter.

"Because these drawings look so much like the actual people?" I said.

"Quinn, this looks like a hairball," Brittany added.

It turned out that while Quinn may have been paranoid about being identified by our drawings, the points of light I had just spotted coming towards us from across the golf course were very much for real.

"Fuck me," I whispered. "Okay, time to go, chicas!" I said, smacking each of them on the arm to get their drunken brains in gear. "We gotta get out of here. Vamos, vamos!"

"Oh, shit," Quinn said catching sight of the headlights, and took off running, with Brittany and me right behind her. I'd gone about ten strides when I realized Rachel wasn't with us.

I turned around to see that she was kneeling at the scene of the crime, frantically rubbing the can of paint and the broken golf club with a wad of tissues.

"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled.

"I'm wiping off our prints!" she yelled back.

I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her behind me, sending her tissues flying in the air.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

At first we ran in a panic, heading for the cover of the trees as fast as we could, trying to make sure whoever was on that golf cart would lose sight of us. Brittany led the way and I followed in the back to make sure we didn't lose anyone who didn't have as much experience running from security guards as I did.

Most of the back yards that bordered the golf course had fences, so the first one we passed that didn't, we cut across it, not really taking time to notice that the sprinklers in their front yard were going full force.

Brittany's cat-like reflexes allowed her to dodge the streams of water, but Rachel and Quinn ran straight through them, flailing like they were on fire and yelping like handbag dogs. Luckily their spastic display gave me warning time to avoid them too.

When we made it to the street I turned to look behind us. I doubted that anyone who worked as a security guard at a golf course in west central Ohio was going to have the ability or motivation to actually catch up with us, but I felt a lot better after I checked to make sure.

Panic turned to exhilarated laughter as we jogged down the street and into a playground, collapsing on a set of swings.

"Oh my God," Quinn said, gasping for breath, "Rachel, you should have seen your face when that sprinkler came on."

"You say that like you didn't shriek like a little girl!"

"Okay, but your face!" She twisted up her face and stuck out her tongue, trying to mimic it.

"It's a pointless argument, you both looked ridiculous, and now you look like drowned rats," I said.

"We will air dry. Come on, Quinn," Rachel said, pumping her legs to get her swing going.

"I'm going on that slide," Brittany said. She started climbing up the slide part rather than the ladder, whereupon Rachel pointed and cackled maniacally.

"You guys are all so wasted," I said.

"Whatever, Santana!" Rachel said.

"Yeah, like you're completely sober," Quinn added.

"Whatever," I said, "I can holds my liquor. You all should be bowing down thanking me for being so damn astute, otherwise we'd all be handcuffed in the back of a golf cart right now."

Lying halfway on the slide and halfway on the ground, Brittany started to speak with a smile spreading across her face, when Quinn pointed at her dramatically.

"Brittany, NO. I do not want to hear anything you're about to say about Santana, golf carts, handcuffs, or any combination thereof."

I bit my lower lip to keep from smiling, because I knew exactly the night Brittany wanted to talk about.

Rachel had stopped swinging and was singing to herself, her head resting on the chain of the swing, tracing doodles in the dirt with her toes.

"You still with us, Berry?" I said.

"Yes," she said cheerily. "In fact, I would like to declare my intention to go lie on that merry-go-round with my head in the center, push it around with my feet, and watch the stars spin. Fellow revelers, join me!" she said, standing up from her swing.

"Uhh, pass," I said.

"Chili dog and vodka and then spinning? I don't think so," Quinn said.

"I will totally go star spinning with you, Rachel!" Brittany said enthusiastically.

I kept my eye on them as they arranged themselves on the rickety metal disc, the tops of their heads meeting in the middle. Rachel's legs weren't long enough to reach the ground, so Brittany propelled them in circles. Rachel raised her arms in the air and we heard her let out a long "Woooooooooooooo!"

I sat in silence next to Quinn Fabray.

If there was ever going to be a moment, this was it. I turned and studied her face.

"What," she said without looking at me.

"What's the plan, Fabray?"

"Plan?" she asked dazedly.

"For getting Rachel."

She finally looked at me. "Okay, I don't speak whatever language it is you're using. Can you just tell me what you're talking about?"

"Don't play dumb, Q. We both know you're totally GFB."

She squinted at me. "What the hell is GFB?"

"Gay for Berry?"

She shook her head, rolling her eyes.

"Is that what the songwriting thing was about the whole time?" I asked.

"Santana. . . first of all, not everyone sees people as challenges to be met or flags to be captured, or whatever it is in your worldview. Not everything is a calculation. Second of all, I don't know what you think you're observing through your rainbow-colored glasses, but Rachel and I? We're barely even friends."

"Right. But I'm not talking about being friends."

She shrugged, agitated.

I was quiet for a minute. Rachel and Brittany had turned themselves right side up and were facing each other cross-legged on the merry-go-round, talking.

"Okay," I sighed at Quinn. "Are you really going to force me to talk about this? Do I have to remind you that I was there at cheerleading camp? In middle school?"

Quinn forced a laugh, but her body stiffened. "What, back when we were just kids?"

"Mmhmm, that's right. And you know what, Q? Two or three months ago, before your fascination with me and Berry became way too obvious for me to ignore, I would have chalked it up to that – being just kids – and let it go. Young Quinnie was just caught up in the excitement of being away at summer camp with her two best friends. She wanted to fit in, and maybe she got carried away. And that's the only reason why, when her two friends decided they liked to kiss each other, she decided she would try it too. Cause she didn't want to be left out. Any of those times. All summer."

Quinn's eyes blazed, even through the glassiness. "You can't apply things that happened when we were eleven to anything that's happening now. I hadn't even gone through puberty yet. It was just young girls being silly. Experimenting."

"Yeah," I said, "I told myself that one too. But if that's your theory, how much does it scare the hell out of you that it clearly wasn't silly for the other two of us?"

She stared at her shoes, chewing on the inside of her cheek, shaking her head slowly.

"Look, Quinn, I'm gonna keep it real here, cause that's how I do it, right? Now since I started this little whatever-it-is with Rachel, I've realized something. People click, and they stick around each other for a reason. You might not expect it, or understand it, or even want it, but for some reason you do it.

And I can admit it, that you weren't wrong, entirely – Berry was supposed to be a conquest. But it didn't turn out that way. We kept coming back to each other because – and if you ever tell anyone this, especially her, I'll punch your lights out – we are so damn much alike." I shrugged. "She kinda gets me."

"What's your point?" she asked.

"Do you ever wonder why the three of us – you, me, and Britts – found each other? Think about it: out of the two hundred girls at those stupid summer camps, we became friends. And out of the thirty girls on Cheerios, we became the top bitches. And why? Because we pushed each other."

She nodded. "First as friends, then as rivals."

"And then we followed each other to Glee Club. And now here we are, sitting in a playground talking about Rachel fucking Berry. And fine, you may have decided no more kissing girls after that summer—"

"It only took three months for me to realize I was a third wheel."

"Yeah, well. My point is, I think there's a reason the three of us are still here, more or less together. We might all be at different places with understanding it, but we were, and we are, alike. And something in you knows I'm right."

Quinn was quiet for a long time.

"What about Rachel?" she finally asked.

"What about her?"

"You said you and me were alike. Well is Rachel, is she. . . like us?"

I had to repress the resounding 'holy sweet lord' in my brain, because fuck if that wasn't an admission.

"Honestly? I don't know," I said, and meant it. "At first I thought she was mostly straight and I was just irresistible. She used to ask me about having sex with guys all the time until I told her it sucked."

"And now?"

I shrugged. "Maybe she's really flexible, or still figuring it out. There's something about the way she reacts to you, though. It happens in person and when she talks about you. To be honest, it totally grosses me out. But I saw it right away, and I sure as hell wouldn't have pushed it if I thought it was a dead end." I paused and added, "Britt sees it too."

"So Rachel talks about me?"

I shook my head at her. "Super GFB," I said.

"I'm not. I just. . ." she said, trailing off, trying to find the words. "I just find her so interesting. It's like in our boring school and our stupid town, there's Rachel. . . and then there's everybody else. I used to hate her for it, and now I just, I'm curious. How do I know where the line is between wanting to be her friend and being, um, GFB?"

"You might not want to hear this, Quinn, but I'm pretty sure people who are interested only in being friends don't have to ask that question. But since you're asking it – I think you have to start by not being afraid of the answer so long that you lose the chance to get the right one."

"I'm not sure you're in a place to be advising me on fearlessness."

"You could look at it like that," I said. "Or you could look at it like maybe I know what I'm talking about." I crossed my arms over my chest.

Quinn gazed across the playground at Rachel, who was laughing at something Brittany had said.

She smiled. "You know, she really is a little like you. Do you know how she got me to come to your house tonight?"

"She told me that's why she invited Britt."

Quinn nodded her head, laughing. "Well, that's part of it. She also mentioned, just casually, that she thought Brittany had a really good shot at Prom Queen. Something about fashion sense and Kesha and Artie's wheelchair tugging on the student body's heartstrings, and that the only way she wouldn't win was if we could get her away from Artie. And that you were the key to accomplishing that."

"I think I just tasted bile. That is frighteningly brilliant."

"I can't believe I fell for it," Quinn said. "It never occurred to me she might be manipulating me until I saw her let loose around you."

"Thanks."

We sat in silence again.

"I don't have a plan," she said hesitantly. "But if I did, would I have to watch my back around you? Or my car tires? Or my immune system?"

"Ehh, no more than usual," I said.

She looked at me skeptically.

"Okay fine, here's the thing," I said. "Berry and I are too hot together. It's like a threat to the thermodynamic stability of the solar system. Her being with you is much safer for everyone. But by the way, good luck getting that to happen if you take Spudson to the Prom."

And that's where it ended, because Brittany and Rachel were on their way back. Rachel slumped against Brittany.

"Rachel's tired," Brittany said. "Maybe we should go home."

"I think we're actually closer to Brittany's house at this point than Santana's, aren't we?" Quinn asked.

"Totally," Brittany said. "It's like a mile that way."

"I'm not sleeping there," I said. "You all be my guest, but I'm going home."

"Santana, you can't walk home alone at 3:30 in the morning. Not through the mean streets of Lima Heights Adjacent," Quinn said.

Rachel giggled.

"Hilarious," I said. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Santana, you're not doing that." Rachel said. "We're not letting you walk alone, and you're not making us all walk three times longer than we need to. Come on, I'm so tired and my feet are dying, they're dying! My party shoes were not meant for so much walking, or any amount of running from the law."

I sighed. "Despite the fact that you just used the phrases 'party shoes' and 'running from the law', fine, let's just go."

"Thank you, Santana," Rachel said.

We headed out of the park, much more slowly than we had entered it. Rachel made small, sad whimpering noises with every step. Brittany finally took pity on her, bent down in front of her and said, "Get on, honey."

My heart melted into a puddle on the ground.

"You need to fix it, Santana," Quinn said quietly, seeing the look on my face as I watched Brittany carry Rachel out of the playground.

A block later, Quinn leaned over and threw up into someone's lilac bushes. She stood up, swaying unsteadily.

I took her arm and draped it over my shoulders, helping support her as we walked the rest of the way home.

"Somehow," she rasped to me, "I don't think that had anything to do with vodka and chili dogs."

"I feel like we're moms," Brittany said to me, nodding at our sleepy cargo as we turned onto the sidewalk that led to her front porch. "Super young moms of drunk teenaged girlfriends."

**

We deposited Rachel and Quinn in Brittany's room, and Brittany went downstairs for the air mattress while I tiptoed to the linen closet in the hallway for extra blankets. I was pulling down a stack of comforters when the door to the master bedroom opened.

"Hey, Mrs. Pierce," I said sheepishly.

"Are you girls just getting in at 4am?" she asked.

"We sort of. . . went for a long walk," I explained. "I'm sorry for waking you up. Quinn and our other friend Rachel are here, so I needed blankets."

"Well that's a blast from the past," she said. "I can't remember the last time I saw Quinnie."

"I'll make sure she says hi in the morning," I offered.

"That would be lovely. In fact," she said, reaching out to pat my shoulder, "Why don't you think about staying for breakfast, Santana? We all miss you. I'll make omelets and some good, strong coffee," she said with a warm smile.

Shit. Oh shit, shit, shit. How was this happening? I had held it together all god damn night and now I was crying? In front of Brittany's mother? About breakfast?

But there was no stopping it. I stood there clutching the comforters, suddenly sniffling, my shoulders shaking.

Brittany's mother took the comforters from me and set them back inside the closet, and wrapped her arms around me.

"Been a long night?" she asked.

I nodded against her shoulder.

"I don't know what happened between you girls that we never see you anymore, Santana," she said, "But you know you're always welcome to visit us. I'll watch Jersey Shore with you anytime, even if Brittany isn't around." She took a handful of tissues from the pocket of her robe and put them in my hand.

I pulled myself together as quickly as I could, terrified that if I was gone too long Brittany would come looking for me. "Thanks Mrs. P," I said, taking the comforters back.

"Like I said," she smiled. "Anytime."

"Oh, Mrs. Pierce?" I said as I turned to go. "Rachel – our friend – she's a vegan. Could you like, make some oatmeal or something, too?"

"You got it," she said.

**

I dabbed at my eyes a final time before I went back into Brittany's bedroom. Rachel was already balled up in a sheet on one side of the air mattress, and Brittany was sitting on her side of the bed babbling baby talk at her stupid cat.

Even after everything that had happened over the last few months, the whole night we had just put behind us, and the last fifteen minutes in the hallway, at first I still turned toward Brittany's bed out of habit. She looked up at me with an expectant smile. I caught myself after two steps and turned my back on her to take the half of the mattress next to Berry.

At the same moment, Quinn emerged from the bathroom and eyed the same spot.

"That spot's taken, Fabray," I warned her.

Quinn looked down at Rachel's small, bundled figure on the mattress, and then back up at me.

I've seen Quinn Fabray look at me in lots of different ways over the years. Anger, contempt, occasional amusement, even envy. I'd never seen her look at me like this before, with her eyes soft around the edges, her jaw clenched and her lips parted in some kind of grimace that was half pleading and half terror.

"Oh, Jesus," I said, understanding what she was silently asking of me.

I was just so fucking tired. I just needed to sleep. So whatever. Go ahead, Quinn, you sucker. Let me help you indulge your insane feelings that you have no idea what you're even going to do with, while I cap off this night with exactly the thing that I've been killing myself to avoid.

"Be my guest," I said.

I threw a comforter at her and turned and walked toward Brittany's bed like I was trudging to the gallows. I lined myself up along the edge of the bed, facing out, putting as much space as I could between myself and the warm, soft skin that was still in arm's reach. It was useless, though, if I thought I could forget where I was and just sleep. The fucking pillow smelled like her head.

Brittany scooted her cat from her lap to the floor with a soft thump and reached over to her nightstand to turn off the light. I heard Quinn rustle the blankets as she slid into bed next to Rachel, and then some soft murmuring. Then silence.

Brittany rolled from her back to her side, facing my back. My skin prickled.

"Santana."

"I'm sleeping," I said, even though now my heart was racing so fast I wouldn't sleep for hours.

"I missed having you here. This feels so nice but it's also making my stomach hurt. I mean, it could be the vodka and chocolate shake, but I don't think so."

Not my problem, I said in my head, but it never made it out of my lips.

"Can I hug you?" she said. "Like with my one arm under you and the other one over you, like we do sometimes when we're sad?"

And the tears were back.

"No," I whispered.

Brittany went quiet for a long time, but she was still so close that every muscle in my body was tense. I held my breath.

"Santana," she finally said. "Rachel and Quinn say I need to listen to my heart, and I'm trying to do that. But what if my heart is saying two different things?"

Was she kidding? Could the two things even be comparable in her head? I rolled over to face her.

"Brittany," I said, looking into her eyes, wide in the dark, "You and I have been best friends since we were nine years old. Listen _harder_."

I rolled back over, turning away from her. She didn't talk anymore and I figured she'd fallen asleep. I let the tears fall silently, dabbing my nose and eyes with the tissues Mrs. Pierce had given me.

Brittany rested her hand against the small of my back and didn't move it all night.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

It's funny, you know, the way things work out sometimes. How a night that feels endless and epic at the time doesn't wind up changing much of anything about what you do, at first.

It's like there's some kind of shift under the surface, but you can only feel little pinches and tugs here and there. Life goes on as usual, but the memories nag their way into your thoughts. Things like Quinn's eyes asking me to let her sleep next to Rachel. Things like Brittany's soft hand on my back.

So I had this tension, or something. Like things among the four of us had twisted just a little, and now everything in my view was at a slightly different angle. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe it was just me. But I felt like I was waiting for the fallout, and it sort of seemed like a cross between waiting for Christmas morning and waiting for the pain to kick in after you stub your toe really fucking hard.

And in the meantime – in the space between the lightning and the thunder – what do you do? You can't just stop everything that was normal, or walk up to people and say hey, so about the fact that we all spent time together having fun and having real conversations, and now I feel different, so can we talk about that? No. You do what you do, and you wait.

And so on Monday morning Quinn goes back to Finn. Brittany goes back to Artie.

And I have Rachel. And it's what Rachel and I do – we pick a television show on a weeknight and use it as an excuse to spend time together. I talk her into settling for microwaved popcorn, and she huffs about my culinary laziness. Then she props her bare legs up on the coffee table to get my attention and thinks I don't know that's why she did it.

And of course it works exactly how she meant it to, so then I'm leaning over her on the couch, hands on either side of her shoulders, smiling down at her as she's giggling up at me.

*

"Oh, now what, Berry?" I said. "What do you say now?"

Her mouth widened into a full-fledged laugh. "I say, I think I'm trapped," she said, sounding rather pleased about it.

"And I say . . . I think that means you're in a little trouble, Miss Berry."

I lifted one hand from the couch beside her and slid it underneath her pajama shirt to skim the skin of her stomach lightly with my fingernails. Her muscles tensed under my fingertips and she covered her face with her hands.

"Santanaaaaa, no tickling," she warned, squirming side to side as I traced circles all over her belly.

"No tickling?" I said in mock bewilderment. I dragged my fingertips up the skin of her left side, hip to breast.

"Noooo!" she laughed, trying to twist onto her side underneath me.

I sank my fingernails in deeper into her ribcage. She howled with laughter and contorted, curling one knee up, trying to pry apart our bodies.

"Eeeep!" she yelped, smacking at me ineffectually. "No, no, no, helllp! Help me!"

I pretended to look around the room.

"I don't see anyone here to help you, Rachel."

I pushed her knee out to the side and slid my body down against hers, fingertips embedded in both sides of her body now.

"Santana, oh my God, stop!" she pleaded, trying to use her free foot to dislodge me.

I shook my head, biting my lower lip.

Because I'd already learned that if you tickle Rachel Berry long enough, it basically becomes the best. foreplay. ever.

I'm not sure if it happens because she likes the touch of fingertips my on her skin, or the excitement of struggling against me, or the feeling of me controlling her. But if you ignore her pleading right up to the point where you think she can't take it anymore, everything changes.

Her mouth falls open from a grin. Her eyes relax from a tight squint to a flutter. Her hands stop swatting at me and start grabbing and hanging on, wherever they happen to fall. Her movements change from jolting escape to rhythmic friction.

Her "Santana, please" sounds less like a laugh and more like a demand.

When I heard it, that tone in her voice, I stopped tickling her and pushed her underwear aside, smirking down at her as I curled my fingers up inside her tight slickness.

She groaned and ran her hand down the side of my face, lingering at my lips. "Come here," she said, bringing that same hand down low. "Let me feel you."

Our limbs figured out how to rearrange themselves, and Rachel's fingers found their way inside my underwear. I pulled the blanket over us like a tent and slid myself down onto her, arching my back to take her in deep.

Ohh, she had a good angle on me. That insistent, warm tension she was creating inside me was already making my body tighten. I tried to keep up, keep a rhythm going with the fingers inside her, but it was useless. My muscles listened to her fingers and not to me.

"Oh my God," I choked out, extracting my hand, focusing completely on the sensation of her fingers filling me.

Her noises mirrored mine. If I moaned, she sighed or whimpered in pleasure. If my leg shook or my body clenched she would whisper, "yes," or dig her nails into my skin in response. This was no longer the tentative Rachel who asked me questions along the way, who let me take the lead. This Rachel was confident, and she was really fucking enjoying what she was doing. It was hot as hell.

"So good, Rachel," I whispered.

I love hitting that moment when you know it's the point of no return. Like, you're not at the peak of the mountain yet, but you know you have enough momentum to get there if you just hang on. And in that moment it can be all internal, all about your own body and what you're feeling. Or you can change your internal story just a touch, and have it include the girl below you. And think about how when you come, it's because she got you there.

The first one is easier, safer. I'm well-practiced at it. But today, I looked down at Rachel and saw her eyes, barely open and hardly focused, trained right on me, and I knew that I had picked the second one. I squeezed my legs tight around her, and I cried out as I let her give me those long, slow waves of release.

*

"You're so much fun, Santana," Rachel smiled, giving me a playful smack on the ass as I rested on top of her, coming down.

"I know," I said, "Now let me back in."

She was soaking wet and swollen, and I fucked her hard, watching, feeling, as her whole body moved up and down with the force of my arm.

Her mouth dropped open and the familiar flush started to creep into her neck and cheeks.

And then we heard a car pull into the driveway and turn off its engine.

We both froze. Rachel panicked and tried to sit up.

"They're home early," she panted. "Santana, let go."

"No way," I said, resuming what I had been doing. "They take forever, and you're close. Finish."

She tried to protest, but I put my thumb to her clit in short, intense strokes.

"Touch yourself," I whispered.

Her hand slid down her body and I felt her fingertip brush against my hand.

Two car doors slammed and then we heard the jingle of keys and the rustle of shopping bags being pulled from the trunk.

She was rattled – I was going to lose her.

"Think of Shannon Elizabeth," I whispered into her ear.

Rachel laughed.

"Distracting," she exhaled, but her body tightened around my fingers.

"That's right, come on, girl."

The voices of two gay dads were rapidly approaching. Oh, what the hell, right?

"Think of... think of Quinn," I said.

Rachel gasped.

"Yeah," I said, _feeling_ it work on her. "Think of Quinn about to come."

Rachel dug her nails into my shoulder and rocked her hips against my hand through her orgasm. Then there were keys in the front door.

Her body was still convulsing when I withdrew my hand and sat up to face the TV, running my other hand over my hair to tame it.

Rachel kept her hand between her legs and rolled onto her side, hiding her flushed face from her fathers, who were now walking through the door behind us.

"Hi girls!" they called out in unison and headed for the kitchen.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Not gonna lie, I was feeling a little proud of myself. But sitting next to Rachel as she lay there regaining her breath, I was also fairly certain I was about to get in some sort of trouble. Maybe even more than one sort.

She hit me in the face with a throw pillow.

"I cannot believe you did that!" she whispered loudly.

"Oh, you mad?" I said, smirking and tossing the pillow back at her. "Cause you didn't seem mad a minute ago."

"We could have been caught," she said. "Besides the fact that it would be extremely embarrassing for my parents to see me _in flagrante_, if they knew what we were doing they would make me follow boyfriend rules with you. Open bedroom doors, no cuddling under blankets, no sleepovers – it would be horrific!"

"Relax Berry, I made sure we didn't get caught."

"Yes, well, about that," she eyed me testily. "I didn't need inspiration. I was doing just fine."

"Oh, you were doing real fine if you know what I'm saying," I agreed, "Just a bit too slowly, given the circumstances."

"Okay whatever, I get Shannon Elizabeth, but why," she whispered intently, sliding closer to me on the couch, "would you use Quinn's name? That was, frankly, rather strange and confusing. Although, it did seem that I sort of enjoyed the scandalous nature of the idea in the moment."

"It did seem that way. Considering you came as soon as I said it."

She dropped her jaw as if to convey her utter shock and offense. "That would have happened either way! So why would you say that? Is it because _you_ think of her? Is that what works for you?"

"Berry, that's gross. And if you ever suggest it again I will literally scrub your mouth with soap. And not the classy Body Shop kind, the hard little squares from motel bathrooms that smell like an old lady. Saying her name was strictly for your benefit."

"Okay, but seriously Santana, why are you and Brittany obsessed with this idea that Quinn and I like each other?"

"Um, because you do? Wait, what did Brittany say?"

"Well, the memories are all a little hazy. But from what I remember, when we were sitting on the merry-go-round the other night she asked me what it was like being pursued by two of the hottest girls at school at the same time. I was naturally confused, and at first thought she had gotten the wrong idea when I danced with her in your room. I was preparing to let her down gently until she said, while gazing in your direction, 'I just hope they don't start fighting. Santana looks so hot when she has a black eye, but she won't let me touch her ever since she told me she loved me.' It was then I realized she meant Quinn was the second."

"And what did you say?"

"Well, being unsure of what to make of it and acutely aware of my intoxication level, I moved on. I'm trying to think of a way to put this delicately for your benefit, Santana, but I'm sure you're aware that Brittany doesn't always understand. . . situations. Are you telling me you can, in fact, verify the accuracy of her implication?"

"First of all, don't underestimate Brittany, Berry. She understands more than you can tell from the weird-ass shit that comes out of her mouth."

"So then," she said slowly, "You and Brittany are in agreement that Quinn has romantic feelings for me?"

Well, this may be the first rumble of the thunder I was anticipating. Why hold back now?

"Berry," I said, "Quinn will be in love with you as soon as she stops expending all of her energy trying to deny it to herself."

Rachel's cheeks went ghostly white. "What?"

"I thought she just had the hots for you, like I did," I continued, "But now I think it's more than that."

"Quinn. . . Fabray?"

"Yes, Quinn Fabray, maybe you know her?"

She looked at me like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming tractor trailer.

"If you think about it, Berry, it makes a lot of sense. She's been fascinated with you for years, you can see that, right? But now that we're getting too old to be behaving like the first-grader who pulls the girl's pigtails for attention, she has absolutely no idea what to do. She pulls you in, she pushes you away, confuses the hell out of you. Sound familiar?"

"So she told you this?"

"Not in so many words."

"But . . . she . . . Finn. Right? And, and . . . Puck!"

"Both guys that you and I have also done. Or held hands with, or whatever, in your case."

She continued, "And Sam . . .and, and Beth!"

I looked at her witheringly. "You do realize none of these things are actual arguments against what I'm telling you?"

"Oh, this is bad. I mean, it's not bad, it's weird. This is weird and unnerving. I'm usually so much more perceptive than this. I mean, to be blindsided by this is unacceptable."

She stopped the babble and looked at me accusingly. "Is this some sort of competition thing between the two of you?"

I shook my head.

Rachel stood and began pacing between the coffee table and television.

Then suddenly she stopped in front of me, leaned down, and stuck a finger in my face.

"Are you fucking with me?" she demanded.

I grabbed her wrist and lowered her finger from in front of my nose. "Berry, first of all, your dads are on the other side of that wall so let's bring it down a notch, mmkay? And second of all, I didn't have anything to do with this. I mean, other than totally pushing her into admitting it, of course. But I didn't make up her feelings. Honestly, I don't even get it. Like, I only realized you were hot after I saw you sing. Before that I never would've gotten past the kindergarten prep school uniform and the unearned air of superiority."

"Do you think there's some kind of petrochemical seeping from the soundproof walls of the choir room that is changing all the girls' hormonal balances? Should we warn Lauren and Mercedes and Tina?"

"No, Berry. This is not a brand new development in Quinn's life, okay?"

"So is she . . . has she . . . have there been other girls?"

"Not since she used to make out with me and Brittany at junior high cheerleading camp. Not that I know of, anyway. I mean, who knows what she and those other Bible school freaks get up to."

"You . . . and, and . . . Brittany . . . and Quinn?" Rachel squeaked. "I need to sit down."

"I wish you would. Anyway, we were really young. Until recently I never thought it was anything to her."

Rachel sat down on the coffee table. She popped back up about 2.5 seconds later.

"So. So what do I do?" she asked.

"I don't know, Berry. I guess that depends on if you want to fuck her—I mean, on whether you have feelings for her or not. Listen, we both know when it comes to relationships, that A, Quinn will play both sides of the fence until she figures out what's going to work best for Quinn, and B, she'll refuse to acknowledge even the biggest truths until the situation is so ridiculous that her boyfriend is singing a ballad in honor of their unborn child at her parents' dinner table, or the girl who's trying to steal her boyfriend has to be the one to tell him he didn't actually conceive a child via hot tub. So I would say don't expect her to release her hooks from Finn anytime soon. And don't hold your breath for a confession of true love, either.

In other words, Berry, I'd say the ball's in your court."

A smile played at the corners of Rachel's lips. "The idea of me and Quinn Fabray is ridiculous."

"Not if you've been paying attention."

Rachel narrowed her eyes at me. "Wait a minute," she said. "Why are you okay with this? Usually you stop at nothing to protect your claim to your sexual partners, and now you're sitting here giving me romantic advice about another woman, not half an hour after we were intimate."

I shrugged. "I just . . . uhh, want you to be happy?" I said.

"Bullshit," Rachel said. "You, you really don't care about me at all, do you? Or even worse, you're trying to get rid of me. That's it, isn't it? You're bored with me, so you want to push me off onto someone else so you don't have to deal with the messy consequences."

"Rachel, come on," I said quietly. "I think I've earned you not saying that type of shit to me."

"Do you have a better answer?" she asked.

I scowled and looked at my hands in my lap.

"You know what, Santana, this has been a really weird night. I just found out the girl I'm sleeping with doesn't care about me in the slightest, and the girl who's tormented me since middle school is actually in love with me. I need some alone time and then an emergency Skype session with my therapist. I think you should go now."

"Berry, don't do this, you're just freaked out."

"No, really, Santana. Please go."

"Rachel, stop."

She sat back down on the coffee table, her jaw set and her eyes glued to the floor.

I sighed and got up. I gathered my things and walked out without looking at her again.

Well, fuck.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Thursday of that week we had a late-night rehearsal for nationals. Mr. Schue bought us a bunch of pizzas and basically turned us loose in the auditorium, which meant it was like a glee kids party, only without booze and with Brittany fully-clothed. He had stood there at his board and warned us how hard we were going to have to work, but it turned out to be a metric ton of sitting around on our asses. Because let's face it, there are some of us who have our shit down. And then there are Finn, Sam, and Puck, whose take on the choreography looks like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of baby dinosaurs trying to stomp out a village of evil Smurfs.

Eyes burning from the visuals, I sat by myself, cross-legged at the back of the stage. I was flipping through my sheet music, because I wanted to have my harmonies down by the time we finally got to the next song. Actually, Berry would be really helpful right about now. My note reading is getting better, but it's so much easier when she just shows me what to sing. Now that I was thinking about it, where the hell was Berry? I hadn't heard her grating stage mother voice in quite some time now. I scanned the auditorium. Mike, Tina, and Lauren were goofing around at the piano. Quinn was sitting with Britts and Voltron down in the first row of seats. But Berry was nowhere to be seen.

Sure, she had been avoiding me for days, but that would in no way be enough for her to miss an opportunity to stomp around a stage giving orders and criticizing the universe. This called for an investigation.

I folded up my music and went out the stage door. The hallway was empty in both directions. I peeked into the girls' room and found that was deserted too. But exiting the bathroom, I heard voices coming from around the corner, so I got my creepster on and tiptoed in their direction.

Okay, that was definitely Berry's voice, and more interestingly, I had definitely just heard my name. And it sounded like. . . Kurt. And Gay Michael Bublé. Mercedes, too.

Well, if they were trying to be sneaky, they were terrible at it. The corner classrooms at McKinley have two doors on the adjacent outside walls. Which means, I thought as I silently turned the handle, if I sneak in, cross the room, and position myself by the other one, there's a very good chance I could hear exactly what they were talking about.

"I don't know, Rachel, she was a hard person to get to know," Mercedes was saying as I leaned against the inside of the classroom door. "I definitely got the feeling she was keeping a lot bottled up inside, but she was going through so much at the time. It could have been the pregnancy, or her parents kicking her out, guilt over Babygate. I was just trying to support her. It wasn't my business to pry."

"I understand," Rachel said.

"Well, for what it's worth, Rachel," Gay Michael Bublé said, "it sounds to me like whatever is going on, she really cares about you. For someone who spent so much time and energy trying to make you feel miserable to suddenly express so much concern for your future happiness, there's something going on there. Whether it's about more about her or about you, though, it's hard to say."

"If I may," Kurt chimed in. "Not to put too fine a point on it, Rachel, but we can discuss the possibilities surrounding Quinn until we're blue in the face. But are you sure that all of this wasn't, shall we say, engineered for a greater purpose? Something that might, oh I don't know, benefit Santana? Possibly at everyone else's expense?"

"There's definitely something going on with her motives for pushing this that she's not admitting to, and I haven't figured out what it is yet," Rachel replied. "But what she's telling me about Quinn – she believes it. Also, there's the fact that Brittany said the same thing independently. It can't be something they concocted together, because despite my and Quinn's best efforts, they're barely talking to each other."

"So you're saying your corroborating source of credibility is Brittany Pierce?" Kurt asked. "Sounds like you really want to believe what they're telling you, Rachel."

"Wait, wait, can we back up for a minute?" Mercedes interjected. "I need to clear something up. So you and Santana are hooking up. But you're trying to get her together with Brittany, and she's trying to get you together with Quinn? Isn't that a little bit, oh, I don't know. . . crazy?"

"I suppose it does sound a bit strange when you lay it out that way," Rachel agreed.

"Lord Almighty," Mercedes muttered. "Are all girl-girl relationships like this or just the ones at this school?"

"I wouldn't really know," Rachel said. "I've only ever been in one with Santana, so."

"Yeah, well you better watch out for yourself, Rachel," Mercedes said. "I don't trust that girl any further than I could throw her skinny ass."

"I don't know, Santana doesn't seem that bad to me," Gay Michale Bublé chimed in. "I mean, I've heard lots of the stories from Kurt, but it sounds to me like she's hurt and lost more than anything. Come on," he added when no one said anything in response. "Haven't you guys ever been confused? Had your heart broken?"

I was so shocked by someone other than Brittany defending me – I should probably learn his name – that I almost didn't see the silhouette that was just sweeping by the door I had come in. Someone was about to crash their party.

"I will concede that I think it's unlikely that Santana is out to hurt you, Rachel," Kurt agreed. "You're the one ally she still has. But the fact remains – the only way you're going to truly know how Quinn feels is if you ask Quinn."

"Ask me what?" Quinn asked, rounding the corner.

I heard nothing for a few very long seconds.

God, just be cool, Berry.

"Q-Quinn," Rachel stuttered, "Can I talk to you privately for a minute?"

"Yeah, we were just leaving," Gay Michael Bublé added with an awkward – yet somehow freakishly charming – laugh. I heard their footsteps begin to move.

Quinn caught on immediately, and I didn't have to be able to see her to know she was busily throwing up her icy veneer.

"Not now," she said with an edge to her voice. "We're in the middle of a rehearsal. I just came out for a quick bathroom break, and then I heard voices."

I missed the next thing that Rachel said, because at that moment the classroom door opened and Kurt, Mercedes, and Gay Michael Bublé came tiptoeing through it.

"Santana!" Mercedes whispered in surprise. "What the hell—"

"Shhhh! It's called stealth, you amateurs," I whispered at them. "You're awful at it."

They huddled in close, leaning their ears in toward the door.

"Can I just ask you one question?" Rachel was saying.

"I reserve the right to not answer it, but fine," Quinn replied. "Ask me."

"How did you sleep?"

"Excuse me?"

"How did you sleep the night we shared the air mattress in Brittany's bedroom?"

Mercedes looked at me in disbelief. "They did what?"

I flapped my hand at her to be quiet.

"I slept fine," Quinn said, trying to add a puzzled lightness to her voice that fell flat.

"Really? I didn't," Rachel said matter-of-factly. "In fact, I didn't sleep a wink. And I was quite tired, too. Exhausted, really, given that it was four o'clock in the morning. But I was tense and I kept feeling you moving and breathing. Every time you brushed against me I was wide awake all over again. You're telling me that was a good night's sleep for you?"

Quinn let out a small noise, like a word had tried to come out and got stuck in her throat. Finally, she sighed and said, sheepishly and a little annoyed, "I barely even dozed off. For a small person you take up a lot of bed. And you have really pointy elbows."

"I see. So it was my elbows?" Rachel said quietly. "That's what kept you awake?"

There was a long pause. Kurt held one hand dramatically to his lips.

"What did Santana say to you?" Quinn asked in a small voice. "Because you know she'll say anything –"

"She didn't initiate this conversation, Quinn," Rachel cut her off. "I asked her a question about your feelings toward me, and she answered it."

Well played Berry, I thought to myself. Not technically a lie, but not giving her the chance to blame the insidious Santana Lopez for making it all up.

"What are you smirking at?" Mercedes asked me.

"Can it, Latifah," I snapped.

"Okay, let me be more direct," Rachel continued, after being met with silence once again.

"What I'm asking you, Quinn, is whether you had trouble sleeping that night because . . . because you were lying next to me."

Quinn, never one to seize a golden opportunity to tell the truth, continued to stand in silence.

And Rachel, never one to let a silence hang for long, added, "I'm asking because I'm standing here, Quinn, and I'm looking at you . . . and I have butterflies in my stomach. Just from looking at you. And I don't understand it, okay? But right now I need to ask you to have the courage to tell me whether you have them too."

"Oh my God," Gay Michael Bublé said softly. "Does anyone else feel bad that we're standing here eavesdropping on this conversation?"

"Shhh!" Mercedes, Kurt, and I said all at once.

"Butterflies," Quinn said finally. "That's a funny way of putting it. I'd describe it more as nausea. Like a sick panic at the pit of my stomach. But I suppose 'butterflies' sounds nicer."

When Rachel didn't respond with a torrent of big words and complex sentences right away, I knew. There was only one thing that kept her mouth from yapping, and I'd used it a hundred times. The three stooges picked up on it only when there was a soft jostling of the metal lockers behind someone's back.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Mercedes murmured.

"Kurt," Gay Michael Bublé said, shaking his head, "This school is so much gayer than Dalton."

"Am I dreaming?" Kurt said. "Did this classroom dislodge from space-time and drift into a gay parallel universe?"

I leaned my back against the classroom door and folded my arms across my chest. I suppose to the three of them I probably looked victorious. But beneath the weight of my arms, I felt my hands shaking.

Of all the things I could feel when Rachel Berry kissed Quinn Fabray, the loneliness wasn't one I'd expected.

"I can't do this," Quinn said. There was a loud clatter against the lockers. "Stop trying to force me into things!"

"Oh, hell no," Mercedes whispered. "Did she just shove Rachel into the lockers?"

"Quinn, wait!" came Rachel's voice.

Their footsteps retreated in the direction of the bathroom.

"All right kids, show's over," I said, shooing everyone toward the door. "Back to rehearsal. And if any of you mutants embarrass them, or tell anyone else about this, I will cut each and every one of you. Seriously, you'll be dancing onstage in New York with my initials in your foreheads."

Mercedes glared at me and I stared her down. "You ain't exempt, Aretha, move it."

I followed them as far as the auditorium stage door but turned on my heel as soon as they were safely tucked inside.

Now, maybe I wasn't invited into this conversation, but Q and Berry were in this position because of me. Fuck it, they owed me.

I opened the heavy door to the bathroom about two inches and peered inside, praying it didn't squeak and betting on the fact that the hallway was so dark they wouldn't see me.

Quinn was facing the sink, her hands resting on either side of it, eyes closed. Rachel stood next to her, her back to me.

"I can't believe you told Mercedes and Kurt and Blaine," Quinn was saying.

"They're my friends, Quinn. I was confused and I needed someone to talk to."

"This is it for me," she said, wobbling unsteadily on her feet. "Everything I had at this school is finished once this gets out."

"You know, Quinn," Rachel began sternly, "For all your talk about me seeing things from a schoolgirl's perspective, you are so much worse. I mean, what makes you think that after everything, your friends would abandon you because of this, of all things? Why don't you just be honest and say all you're really concerned about are the opinions of people who are popular but other than that, don't matter?"

"The problem is that when you say friends, Rachel, what you really mean is glee club."

"What's wrong with that?"

"There are other people at this school!" She turned and faced Rachel, and I could see the tears brimming in her eyes. "Your past, present, and future might revolve around glee club, but not all of us are like that, Rachel. What happens to me now, in high school, it matters to me. And I'm not going to be ashamed of that, or apologize for it."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"But it's pointless now, I guess," she said.

"Quinn," Rachel said, reaching out and running her hand lightly along Quinn's arm, "Listen, I don't mean to suggest that this is easy. And I shouldn't have implied it doesn't matter. But look, we don't have to tell anyone anything. Mercedes and Kurt and Blaine, we can ask for their discretion. They're our friends, and they'll understand. I'm not asking you for anything, here, Quinn, except to be honest with me. You. . . you can take Finn to prom and win that crown and then when you're back on top socially, maybe if you wanted to, it would be easier to -"

Quinn cut her off. "Forget it, Rachel, it's over. I'm not going to win Prom queen."

"Of course you are."

"No, I'm not. And do you know why?"

"Why? Everyone knows you're a shoo-in."

"Because I broke it off with Finn."

Rachel gazed up at her in disbelief.

"That's right, I ended it," she laughed. "Earlier today. I didn't even mean to, it just came out in the middle of a mundane lunch conversation. Hey could you pass me a napkin and oh, by the way, I'm sick of everything about my life and I need to be alone this summer to figure things out."

"Wow," Rachel said, taken aback. "How . . . how did he take it?"

"He's confused," she said. "But he can join the club."

They stared at the floor in silence. It was so quiet I felt like I had to hold my breath or risk giving myself away.

Finally, Rachel spoke.

"You know, if you kissed me right now, I wouldn't tell anyone."

Quinn exhaled a ragged breath. She closed her eyes and tears slid down her cheeks. "You're unbelievable, Rachel."

"I'm serious. Nobody has to know. Except us – we'll know. And don't you need to know, Quinn?" Rachel asked, stepping closer. "Look at us. We're here, alone. When is there going to be a better chance to find out if Santana and Brittany are right about us?"

"You couldn't – you can't tell anyone," Quinn said, her voice pained, even apologetic.

"I don't care, Quinn," Rachel said, shaking her head. "I don't care if everybody knows or nobody knows, or why. Just . . . kiss me, please. I can't leave this room without knowing that you want to."

"Rachel . . ." Quinn trailed off. She reached out and touched her fingertips to the side of Rachel's face.

"It's okay," Rachel whispered, closing her eyes and parting her lips.

Quinn took a breath. Then another.

_Just do it, Q,_ I thought. _You're only giving yourself time to back out._

She took one step toward Rachel.

Then she bent and brushed her lips lightly across Rachel's cheek.

Rachel's body tensed. The fingers of her hands, grasping the sink behind her, flexed involuntarily.

Staring at Rachel's mouth with heavy eyes, Quinn pressed her lips again to the skin of Rachel's cheek, this time near the corner of her mouth. Then pulling back almost imperceptibly, she stood nearly motionless, letting her warm breath fall across Rachel's lips.

Rachel visibly resisted the urge to lift her chin – the only tiny, subtle motion it would take to press their lips together. Her brow furrowed. As the proximity of Quinn's lips taunted her, her right hand finally had enough – it traveled from the sink to Quinn's left hand, which fell awkwardly at her side.

Quinn's fingers reacted with a twitch then opened, spreading apart as Rachel's fingertips climbed their length, from nail to palm.

Quinn let out a tiny gasp. Rachel intertwined their fingers and grasped, white-knuckled.

And finally Quinn closed the distance between their lips. Rachel's body melted with relief, chest rising and falling irregularly, as Quinn took in her top lip, then broke, then took her bottom lip.

She wrapped her free hand around the back of Rachel's neck, letting her tongue brush against  
>Rachel's between her lips. She extricated her left hand from Rachel's fingers and grabbed the front of her shirt in her fist.<p>

Rachel wove her fingers into Quinn's hair.

There was no more talking. No more question in anyone's mind. They kissed like kissing was the only thing in the world either of them would ever do again. Lips and tongues mixed languidly, as though no single sensation was allowed to pass too quickly, before they had taken all they could from it.

And that was right about the time I started to go from feeling justified for watching to feeling like a complete and total pervert. I let the bathroom door close millimeter by millimeter and backed away. I stood in the middle of the dark hallway, my head spinning.

"Who are you spying on?"

I whirled around to see Brittany standing a few feet behind me.

"Rachel and Quinn," I said, unable to think of anything to say but the simple truth. "Who are you spying on?"

"Nobody, I have to pee. Are they in there together?" she asked with a smile.

I nodded.

My chest hurt. I was dying. Or scared, or happy, or crazy. It was definitely one of those.

And it was one of those – I don't know which – that made me close the distance between Brittany and me in two steps, grab her hair at the back of her neck and her body at the hip, push her back against the lockers, and kiss her like I wanted to drive her through the wall.

As soon as her back hit the lockers she grabbed the sides of my jacket and spun me to her left, pinning me instead. She pressed herself so roughly against me that I had to strain to breathe in. She extended her thigh between my legs and used her hands to guide my hips downward, sending a rush of heat and tension into my belly.

I was done for, then. I would have let her scatter our clothes over this hallway if I could have her right now. It may be a cliché for everyone else, but when I say this girl's body was made for me to touch it and that I was never surer of that than right at this moment, you can take that to the fucking bank. It didn't matter how many other people we had touched or let touch us. The two of us had god damn invented this together.

And judging by the way her hands were clamping down on my ass right now, she had missed me.

Shit could have gotten really real at that point if we hadn't been interrupted by a male voice.

I looked over Brittany's shoulder to see Puck standing in the hallway, clearing his throat.

Oh, shit. Reality.

I could have threatened to bring Lima Heights down on him like the wrath of God for interrupting us, but I already knew what he was going to say. And that he was right.

"Excuse me, ladies," he said. "As much as it truly pains me to interrupt this fine display of affection - and it does, like a lot - you guys know Artie could wheel around that corner any second, right?"

I reluctantly withdrew my hands from beneath Brittany's bra.

"Santana," he said, looking at me sincerely, "You know where I stand, all right? But that kid doesn't deserve to come out here and get his heart stomped on like this." He looked at Brittany. "You need to handle this."

He walked off toward the men's' room. "Damn, this is gonna be a longer trip to the bathroom than I thought," he said.

Leaning against the lockers, Brittany covered her face with her hands.

"You can go back inside if you want," I said. "I get it, I shouldn't have done that."

"I don't know how people do this, Santana," she said, voice muffled by her hands. "He's going to be so devastated. I feel like my stomach is pulling on all of my muscles at once."

Did she just say . . .

"Brittany? Are you breaking up with him?"

"I don't know, Santana, but I think so because . . . when I'm with him, it's gotten harder to laugh at him. It's like, he's still really funny, but I don't laugh as hard. And his hands used to make me feel really good, and now they tickle me in all these weird places, and not like in the good way. When I was falling in love with him, it was like this ball growing inside my chest, like I could feel it in there. I think it's shrinking now, Santana, and I don't know how to stop it or get it back. I feel terrible because it's my fault, not Artie's, and it's because I'm so selfish for wanting you back."

"Brittany, that's not selfish . . ." I started to say, but at that moment Quinn and Rachel emerged from the bathroom.

They had clearly tried to erase all evidence of their activities, but Quinn's hair stood out at abnormal angles and Rachel's shirt was most definitely off-center.

Brittany smiled at them. "What are you guys doing?"

"N-nothing," Rachel said. "What are you guys doing?"

"Making out," Brittany said.

Rachel smiled at her.

"You missed a button, Q," I pointed out to her.

She actually fucking smiled at me before looking down to fix her shirt. What the _hell_ was happening in the universe today?

They walked off together toward the auditorium, Rachel letting Quinn go several seconds ahead of her so it wouldn't look like they'd been together all that time. And Brittany and I were left to the matter at hand.

She looked at me sadly. God, if she wanted me to have words, she shouldn't have done that thing with her leg.

I took a deep breath and tried my best to gather coherence from the haze.

"Look, Britt, to answer your question, I. . . I don't know how people do it. And I don't know what you're going through, because I've never fallen out of love with anyone. But I've hurt someone. I- I hurt Rachel's feelings. It wasn't on purpose, but she thought I was pushing her away because I don't care. That feeling really sucks. I know it's not the same, but . . . for what it's worth, Brittany, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have to go through this."

I squeezed her hands.

"Look, just be honest with him," I said. "I'm starting to think that as hard as it is to believe, that actually might be the way to go."

She wrapped her arms around my neck and sniffled in my ear.

As much as it killed me, I broke the hug first. "We'd better go back in there, B," I said. "Noah is right about Artie seeing us here."

"Okay. But I had to pee though."

"You should do that first," I nodded.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

It was the first weekend in months I didn't hang out with Rachel. I mostly drank beer and played video games over at Puck's to keep from going crazy. He only tried to have sex with me twice. I think he's learning.

I was there Sunday afternoon when he got the text message from Artie.

"I gotta go, Santana," he said, pulling jeans on over his boxers. "He officially needs me more than you do. You can stay if you want to, but don't drink all the Heineken."

"It's cool, I'll go now," I said, trying not to let my voice shake. "Your mother gives me dirty looks even when I wear that Star of David pendant. I think she's on to me. Plus, your sister will corner me into another session of playing Barbies and I don't really have the energy to play Ken as Justin Bieber right now."

"Do you want me to drop you off at Brittany's? It's on the way."

"Umm, no it's okay. I have to, um, shave my legs first. I'll just go home."

*

So it was true, I thought as I was driving home. She had done it.

I had three major reactions to this.

The first was, "Suck it, C3PO." What? I'm only human.

The second was not really in word form, but if I were forced to make it so it would be something like, "Brittany, sex, now."

And the third was slightly more complex. It went something like: "Shit, I have no idea how this works now. Is there supposed to be a mourning period? Do I wait for her to come to me? Does she even want to be my girlfriend now after I pushed her away for so long? Can I even handle that without fucking it up?"

Those second and third reactions made for a sleepless Sunday night for me.

*

Monday morning I leaned against my locker, watching as Puck, Sam, and Mike consoled Artie.

I caught Puck's eye as he and Sam passed by. "How is he?" I asked.

"About how you'd expect," he sighed.

"So does he hate me?"

"He's just sad, Santana."

"If you want my opinion," Sam chimed in with the first words he'd spoken to me directly since we broke up, "I think he feels stupid. Because he knew deep down that no one else has ever had a prayer with either one of you."

Puck laid his hand on my shoulder as he passed and he and Sam made their way down the hall.

*

I was finishing gathering my stuff and was about to turn and take the long way to class to avoid going past Artie's locker, when my ears picked up the sound of approaching penny loafers pounding the hallway furiously.

"Berry," I said, turning around.

"I am compelled to temporarily disregard my current disavowal of our friendship due to the fact that there is no one else who will understand the full significance of the contents of this letter. As such, I request that you please peruse said letter at your earliest convenience and contact me for discussion and analysis. And possibly advisement. Good day."

Her tone was formal, but her eyes were panicked.

She stuck a wrinkled pink envelope labeled "Rachel" in my hand and walked away.

She couldn't just say, "I really need to talk to you"?

*

I opened the letter when I got to biology or physics or whatever class it was.  
>It was a greeting card. Specifically, it was an "I'm sorry" card with a sad looking white kitten on the front, and a message from Finn Hudson on the inside.<p>

_Dear Rachel,_

_I picked this out because I know how much you like cats and I wanted to show you that I was thinking about what's important to you. I was going to cut out a picture of you and put your head on the cat but then I thought you might get mad at me for ruining a picture of you so I didn't. Anyway, like the cat says on the front, I'm also sorry. I'm sure you heard about Quinn and me, and I want you to know I know I should have ended it way sooner. I forgive you for making out with Puck and I hope you can forgive me for going back out with Quinn. I was also hoping you would do me the honor of being my date to the Junior Prom. I thought it would be romantic if I put it in writing, so. Alright. Text me or facebook me later, OK? Cool._

_Finn_

Oh Jesus Christ.

*

Okay, so, for the first hour or so I couldn't get past the eye rolling stage. I alternated my eye rolls between the idea that Finn thought he deserved to have Rachel back and the idea that she was probably actually seriously considering it.

But this was Rachel asking me to be a friend. For something actually important besides watching Real Housewives. And now that we probably weren't having sex anymore, I figured I had to step it up in that department.

I knew Rachel was in Spanish class sixth period, so I skipped geometry or French or whatever it was I had, and went to find her. I stood outside the classroom door in her eye line and waited for her to see me.

"Mr. Schuester, may I please go to the restroom?" she asked without waiting for a response.

"Rachel, take the hall pass, please," he called after her, but she was already out the door.

We went out the emergency exit next to the cafeteria that all of the students know had its alarm disabled by one of the Vo-Tech kids months ago, but the teachers never seemed to notice. We sat on a bench that I happen to have verified isn't visible from inside the school.

"You know, I could be mad at you," I told her as we sat down. "I mean, hooking up with Quinn in that bathroom? That's like bringing her to our bed or something."

"But you don't care about me enough to be jealous."

"Okay, can we stop? You're the one hooking up with another girl."

"Um, so are you."

"You did it first."

"By like 30 seconds."

"Look, whatever. Since when is jealousy our thing?"

"It's not," she admitted, "It just, you know, would be nice to know you cared."

"Berry, I'm here, aren't I? I'm sitting right here with you."

She shrugged her shoulders and nodded. "I'm sorry, I just – I'm freaking out. Again. I'm freaking out on top of a freak out."

"A freak out over Finn Hudson."

"Yes, and don't look at me that way. For months – years, even – all I've wanted is a chance to be with him. And then a second chance, to fix what went wrong the first time. And now I have it, but I also have this other . . . I don't even know what to call it. Possibility?"

"Well, you must've liked making out with this other possibility if she's distracting you from Prince Charming."

Rachel's eyes glazed and stared into space. "Ohh, what's not to like?" she said breathily. "She's gorgeous, and intense. Her skin and hair might as well be emanating golden light. Her lips are like satin, her hands like warm water on your skin. She manages to walk this line between channeling scary intimidation Quinn into overwhelming eroticism, and applying just enough hesitation that ultimately I have to come after her if I want her lips back—"

I put up my hand to stop her and she blinked back into reality. "I didn't ask for details."

Rachel frowned. "Sorry. Anyway, if you could put aside your personal distaste for my two suitors and give me your honest opinion, it would be appreciated."

"Berry, my honest opinion is that you came to me knowing exactly what I would say if I could make the choice for you. But I can't. It's your choice. But seriously, come on, can you really go from ME to Finn? It's just gross."

"Santana, can we possibly make this less about you?"

"Fine. What I'm trying to say is, don't pick Finn just because it's comfortable. You're not the type of person who settles, Berry. If it's really what you want, those big cabbage patch hands all over you, then fine, go back to him. But don't do it just because that's what the Rachel from four months ago would have done. Because you're not that girl anymore."

Rachel sat quietly, digesting what I had said.

"If I tell Finn no, even if he doesn't know it's to go after Quinn, I'll lose him forever. He'd never take me back."

"Who says you'd ever want him back? And anyway, you don't think the same thing goes for Quinn? If you reject her she'll never come near you again. She'll run screaming so deep into the closet they'll have to send a search and rescue party to find her."

"Quinn made me miserable for so long. It's one of the things giving me reservations about her. I've tried to understand, and on some level I do, but I wish she could have just been honest with me."

"Look, I can't believe I'm about to defend Quinn Fabray right now, but maybe you should give her a break on that one. This isn't an easy thing to deal with. I thought you got that."

"I do. I mean, I sort of do. But I wasn't embarrassed for people to find out about me and you. I was proud, in fact. I guess I'm having trouble seeing the difference, and to be honest I'm a little worried it's not so much that I'm a girl and more that I'm, well, me."

"Berry, no, that's not it. Look, it was easy for me to keep hooking up with Brittany, as long as I was sleeping with Puck or whoever, and she was sleeping around. When it's seen as girls experimenting, it's hot. Casual sex makes you look like a badass, and making a conquest out of someone gets you points. But being in love with someone, acting like a couple in front of the whole school? That changes your entire fucking identity."

"I just don't see it that way."

"Well, not everyone is like you, Berry. Not everyone is so bold. It's probably one of the things Quinn likes about you. If you held a gun to my head, it's one of the things I like about you. But let's face it, Rachel, and no offense but you didn't have that much to lose in the first place. You're used to being different and independent that way, but Quinn and me were the head cheerleaders not that long ago. This is new for us. It's why we need each other, so at least this way we'll be going through it together."

A look of revelation spread across Rachel's face.

Shit. I pressed my lips together and looked down at the ground.

"Oh my god," she said. "I am so stupid."

She took my hand. "That was it all along. That was the root of your whole scheme to un-repress Quinn from the very beginning. You knew what she was hiding and you thought if you could get her to admit her feelings for me you would have an ally. That you wouldn't have to go through coming out alone."

Tears sprang up in my eyes, and I shrugged. "Yeah, well, I told you. It's a win-win situation."

"I guess it is," she said.

"But you have to know, Rachel," I added, "That wasn't the only reason. I really did think you two needed my help."

"We did," she said, wrapping her arms around me. "We did, and it's okay. And look, I don't know what's going to happen with any of this. But Santana, whether I pick Quinn or I pick Finn – I promise that you're not going to go through this alone."

I nodded and dabbed at my eyes with my sleeve. "Okay."

She unwrapped her arms from around my shoulders. "It's over between us, isn't it? Now that I have this decision to make and Brittany is single again?"

I nodded again. "Yeah," I said. "I think it is. But we can still hang out. Watch TV. Play cards and video games. Only some parts have to end."

"The lovemaking," she agreed.

"Please, please don't ever say that again."

"Sorry."

"Hey," I said, "Just don't forget who taught you everything you know."

"I won't. And I'll miss it," she said wistfully.

"Me too," I said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

**

That evening I was sitting at my desk, gearing up to write a paper for history or English or something by browsing Facebook for three hours, when my mother called me downstairs.

Quinn was standing in the living room entry way.

"What's up, Q?" I said, barely mustering any surprise to see her.

"I was out for a walk," she said. "A really, really long walk."

"Oh?"

"I walked from school to Brittany's. Then to the playground, then the golf course. Wound up here."

"I'm out of weed, if that's what you want."

"Santana!" my mother yelled from the kitchen.

"I'm just kidding, mama," I called out. "I have plenty left," I whispered to Quinn. "But you have to pay for it this time."

"Can we walk?" she asked.

"Yeah, all right."

We stepped out onto the porch, descended the stairs, and started down the sidewalk in silence.

"Sooooooo," I said. "Boy troubles?"

"I haven't heard from Rachel."

"Since when?"

"Since we . . ."

"Since you made out with her against the bathroom sink in the girls' bathroom last week?"

"Yeeeah. Since that. I've seen her in school but there's never been an opportunity to talk. Earlier this afternoon I finally sent her a couple of text messages to see if she wanted to go to the Lima Bean, but I didn't hear back from her. So have you, um, have you talked to her?"

I nodded. "I've talked to her."

"Did she, you know," she started, looking upwards and biting her lip. "Did she say anything about me?"

I suppose I had sort of set myself up to be put into this kind of position.

I sighed. "Finn wants her back. You know, in hindsight it may have been a miscalculation on your part to break it off with him. She's freaking out."

" . . . Oh," she said, sitting down on the curb. "Freaking out in a good way?"

I sat down next to her. "In a confused way."

"He is such a bastard," she said.

"Amen to that, sista."

"So all of this drama might be for nothing," she said, looking up at the sky. "It would be a relief in a way. I have no idea what I'm even doing."

"Yeah, well. Join the fucking club," I said.

"Yeah, why aren't you with Brittany tonight? I was shocked when I didn't see your car in her driveway, then I figured she might be here with you."

"I'm trying to give her some space. You know, after the breakup. But thanks for knocking on my door anyway knowing full well what you might be interrupting."

Quinn laughed. "You're scared."

"No, I'm not."

"You should be."

"What?"

"You should be scared. You're about to get what you've wanted deep down since you were twelve years old, and all you have to do is not screw it up."

"You know, I'm so glad you stopped by for a chat this lovely evening. I can't imagine why we don't do this more often."

"I'm serious, Santana. You're not ready. After having a real relationship, there's no way Brittany will be willing to go back to hooking up with you while you sleep around, and play games, and spend all your time concocting schemes for manipulating people. And then even if you manage all of that, she's not going to hide that the two of you are together. I'm not sure she could if she tried."

"You don't think I've thought of all of this?" I said. "God, you're like Debbie Downer on steroids."

"I knew it," she said, "You're scared. Well, at least if Rachel decides she likes me and you manage to not ruin things with Brittany again, we can all join forces. I mean, someday, of course. Not anytime soon."

"Speak for yourself, babymama, this will be your second major scandal in two years. I'm not coming near you."

"Your loss, I have experience."

Quinn's phone buzzed. She pulled it from her purse, checked the ID, and looked up at me in disbelief.

"It's Rachel."

"Oh, really? Hey, you might want to think about answering it, probably."

She held the phone to her ear.

"Hey.

It's okay. I texted you too many times, I was starting to annoy myself.

Yeah.

I know.

No, I don't know either, I—

I'm . . . I walked to Santana's, actually.

Yeah.

Umm, sure."

Quinn handed me the phone.

"Santana," Rachel said.

"Berry."

"I'm freaking out again."

"Rachel, you already know what I think."

"No, not that. I told Finn to take a hike. I need you to — can you – will you drive Quinn to my house please? I need to talk to her in person or I'm going to pass away from sheer anxiety. I'm becoming dehydrated from my sweaty palms and rapid respiration."

"Okay. I got your back, Berry."

I hung up and handed Quinn back her phone.

"Let's go, Fabray," I said, standing up.

"Go where?"

"Back to my driveway?"

"Your driveway?"

"Yes, Quinn, that's where I keep my car. Rachel Berry has just asked me to drive you to her house."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

I had my first crush on a girl when I was seven, unless you count Mulan when I was five. Her name was Angela and she was in my second grade class. She asked to sit with me at lunch, and she rode the other end of the seesaw with me at recess. That was all it took - instant besties. I joined soccer and gymnastics because she did. Her parents took us to see *NSync, and I decided I had a crush on Justin Timberlake because Angela did. She was sort of a mean girl. My mother would tell me it wasn't nice to make fun of people, but it sure as hell was fun with Angela. I cried for two weeks when her parents put her in Catholic school.

I didn't know what it was at the time, of course. We seemed to me like any other pair of best friends. There was nothing in my frame of reference to tell me that liking to touch her soft, wavy hair that much wasn't normal best friend stuff. When we played house, it seemed totally natural for the mom and dad to kiss each other on the cheek all the time.

I hadn't thought of her in almost ten years, but I looked her up on Facebook the other night. She still lives in Lima. She has a boyfriend.

I didn't have another best friend until Brittany, when we were nine. I mean, I knew her from school way before that, but then the spring of our fourth grade year when I started to get really good at gymnastics, I switched to a better studio. She was the only one in my new class who I already knew.

She recognized me from school and introduced me to all the girls in the class right away. I had never considered being a cheerleader before, but when Brittany told me about the summer camp she was going to after school was out, I decided maybe it would be fun to be one of those pretty, popular girls.

We became a trio the following summer when the new girl at school, Quinn Fabray, asked on the first day of camp if she could switch out and room in our cabin. Her parents had just transferred her to our middle school in hopes of feeding into Sue Sylvester's championship machine, and she said that Britts and me were the two best ones at camp, besides her. At the time, she was even meaner than I was. Brittany took a liking to her, but I was more just scared to say no.

I know it happened early that summer, but I can't really remember the details of the first time I kissed Brittany. You would think that would make me sad, but it doesn't. It's because it was the most natural thing in the world - an extension of our late night giggling, of falling asleep in the same bed, or splashing each other in the pool. Instead of remembering one specific kiss, I remember a whole summer of lying in the top bunk together, talking, cuddling, and kissing.

The first time Quinn caught us doing that she said, "Why are you guys kissing each other?"

Brittany had said, "Because it feels good. Do you want to try it?"

It was a good summer.

The next year, Quinn left us alone at night. Which was just as well, because we were getting a little older. And the kissing was getting a little, well, different. I found out that summer I liked touching Brittany... everywhere. We didn't plan it, and we didn't talk about it. It just happened.

And that's the thing about it. That has always been the thing about it. It was so simple, so easy. No angst, no drama, no fear.

I wish I could feel that again for even one minute.

I think it's why I never had to face what I felt for Brittany, at least not until she made me. There was never a shift, never a specific moment where you can draw a line between the innocent nine-year-olds we were and the self-aware teenagers we've become.

I never equated what Britts and I were doing with boys with what we were doing with each other. Letting boys touch you felt sort of good sometimes, and it was a thrill to say fuck you to everyone who thought you shouldn't do it, but really the best part was that it made you popular. I slept with boys because it got people talking about you, and it made it harder for other girls to compete with you for attention. I slept with Brittany because it felt good. Like she said.

It never occurred to me that Brittany might feel differently about the boys she was sleeping with. In retrospect, I'm really fucking glad about that. Even thought it meant that when she told me she was in love with one of them, I was blindsided.

Anyway, when we were fourteen and she asked me to be her girlfriend, I laughed. I don't think ever in my life I'll stop feeling ashamed of that. But at the time, I found it ridiculous. Didn't she realize that would make us gay? I was happy having my best friend and getting to have sex with her, and building my reputation at the same time.

She understood way before I did that we couldn't go on like that for much longer. Other people, and real feelings, were going to get in the way.

But around the same time, Quinn was dating football players, soccer players, the captain of the JV baseball team. All these wholesome boys who went to church. Lord knows I didn't want to be like Quinn, but I had to keep up with her. Freshman year Sue Sylvester was already turning us into rivals.

Brittany would push at it every now and then - asking me to be her Homecoming date, asking me to sing romantic songs together - but I never really got it. She was growing up, and I was stuck in a childhood fantasy where I could have everything at once and never have to deal with what was becoming a very clear reality.

And now, pretty much everything that can be different about how we were, is different. It's not simple anymore, and that sucks. So am I ready, Quinn? Who knows. Some days I can't decide if I'm more afraid of other people's reactions or of my never-ending tendency to fuck things up.

Somehow, though, I seem to have some friends around me now. If the excruciating wait between telling Britt I loved her and getting to finally have her was good for anything, that was it.

I mean, Noah Puckerman. Somehow he's gone from fuck buddy to god damn moral compass. There's something to be said for a guy who will let you drink his beer and vegetate on his mom's couch for an entire weekend as long as you're willing to put up with him sitting around in his underwear and belching every ten minutes.

And Rachel Berry. Rachel Fucking Berry. I mean, seriously? One minute I'm trying to get into her pants to embarrass Finn - which was still totally fun, by the way - the next she's manipulating me into spending huge chunks of time with the one person I can't bear to be around. Q better watch herself, cause that bitch be trouble.

And yeah, all right, so Quinn Fabray. Fine, maybe I pushed her into admitting she liked Rachel for my own purposes, and what of it? Brittany pushed me, didn't she, and at least this way neither of us is alone. And that was the whole point. I'm going to need Quinn, all right? Next to Brittany she's my oldest friend.

I guess it's fitting that these two girls, Rachel and Quinn, have stuck around me despite our colorful histories, and not just because now they want to touch each other in their naughty places. I really do think people stick with each other because they reflect each other.

And maybe being friends with Rachel means being friends with Kurt and Blaine. And maybe being friends with Quinn means Mercedes and even Sam, if I promise not to talk about his lips ever again. Mercedes and Tina are close. Maybe she and Mike can learn to love me, too.

Sometimes I can't believe I'm sitting around daydreaming about being friends with these people. Santana Lopez from 18 months ago would have slushied me, thrown me in a dumpster, then slushied me again. She was a Cheerio who could have anyone she wanted; she was on top of the world. Santana Lopez from 18 months ago knew nothing.

Anyway, the point. The whole point of everything. Despite everything I've done wrong, I managed to have this second chance to be the person Brittany needs. I have some things to atone for, and some time to make up for. I'm totally scared. But whether I screw this up in six months, or a week, or two hours, I can't wait any longer to try.

/

Rachel lay across Quinn's bare chest, her white blouse undone from neck to belly button.

It was 2AM, but it had been hours since either girl had looked at a clock. They had just reached that part of the summer when their bodies had shaken off that early morning internal alarm that school forced upon them, leaving them free to obey these infinitely more pleasurable late night cues.

Rachel's lips, as they had been for the better part of every shred of free time she'd had in the past four weeks, were pressed against Quinn's.

"We're going to run out of excuses soon for staying over at each others' houses," she murmured against Quinn's lips.

"Mmmm," Quinn smiled, without opening her eyes. "Maybe we need a private entrance like Brittany and Santana have."

Rachel giggled, as she did after most things Quinn said these days. "If only I had known, I would have planted a tree outside my bedroom window when I was little."

"Maybe we can transplant the one from outside Santana's window. Let's steal it."

"Maybe," Rachel giggled. "They don't really need it. I mean, don't you get the idea that Brittany's mother understands the situation anyway?"

Quinn slid her hands under Rachel's shirt and caressed the skin of her back absently while she spoke.

"Oh, I think Brittany's mother has known for years. It was really obvious when they were younger, before Santana started trying to hide it."

Rachel smiled at the thought of it. But then she noticed anew that Quinn's mouth, red and rough from constant friction, was in kissing distance.

"Hey, I'm tired of not kissing you," she said.

"Yeah, me too," Quinn whispered.

"I mean, I think that was like seventeen seconds. That's at least fifteen too long."

"So stop talking."

Quinn lifted her chin and Rachel dipped her head, and their tongues picked up where they had left off.

"Why do there have to be other things in life besides kissing? Because I really don't think there should be," Rachel said, eventually.

"Ahhh," Quinn smiled, stretching her arms above her head. "What about singing?"

This gave Rachel pause. "Okay fine, there can be singing. But kissing and singing, that's it."

"Not just any kissing, though," Quinn pointed out.

"True," Rachel said, moving her head slowly side to side, dragging her lips lightly across Quinn's jaw line. "Not all kissing is created equal."

"Some of it can be pretty bad," Quinn said with a smirk. "It depends who it is."

"Puck was pretty good," Rachel said.

"Yeah," Quinn agreed.

"You're better," they said in unison. Rachel threw her head back in laughter and brought it to rest tucked into the crook of Quinn's neck.

"Have you thought about that, though?" Quinn asked, her voice still lit up by the remnants of a laugh. "How much overlap there is in the people that you and I have kissed? Finn, Puck..."

"Santana," Rachel finished.

Quinn pursed her lips. "So you know about that, huh?"

"Mmmhmm."

"At least I was only eleven. I didn't know any better."

"I don't regret it," Rachel said. "Quite the opposite, actually."

"Are you... are you still hooking up with her?" Quinn asked, this time with a bit less light in her voice.

Rachel's fingers curled into the skin of Quinn's belly. "Oh please, Quinn. Even if I were interested, she and Brittany haven't come up for air in a month." Rachel smiled again to herself. "It's nice to see her happy, though, isn't it? I mean, those rare occasions when we do see her."

Quinn responded with a mildly enthusiastic, "Mmhmm," and then added, "Maybe she'll be nicer, at least until the honeymoon wears off."

"She said something similar about you, Miss Fabray."

"Oh, really," Quinn said, opening her eyes halfway. "You're an interesting window into Santana's delinquent mind, Rachel."

"I know. I promise to try to use my powers only for good. Or at least, to try to mitigate her evil."

Quinn smiled half-heartedly. "But Rachel," she said. "What about if there were no Brittany?"

Rachel lifted her head to smile down at Quinn, now understanding what Quinn was really asking her.

"You don't have to worry about that, Quinn," she said, stroking the side of her face. "You don't have to worry about anyone."

"So, it's just me?" Quinn asked quietly, eyes betraying her otherwise neutral expression.

Rachel nodded down at her with soft eyes. "It's just you."

Quinn closed her eyes and nodded.

"Me too."

And then Quinn did something she had only done once before, somewhere back in a previous life. She stopped Rachel from kissing her.

"Hey, I have to tell you something, Rachel."

/

"Hey," I said.

"Hey."

"Your mom said I could just come upstairs, so... is it okay that I'm here?"

"I've been waiting for you."

I walked to her desk. She stood up and I threw my arms around her.

The whole drive over - okay, let's be honest, the past week - I've been thinking about what I could and should say at this moment. I never came up with anything good. So I went with what I felt.

"Can you just... can you just be mine, now?" I asked into the side of her neck.

She nodded against my hair. "Mmhmm. Yeah, Santana."

I pulled her shirt over her head and took her hair down from her ponytail. Then I took off my own shirt and bra, took her hand, and pulled her under the covers of her bed.

I needed to feel her skin, finally, against me. I lay on top of her, my head on her chest.

She wrapped her arms around me. How does something feel so safe and so terrifying at the same time? How does that even work?

"Brittany, I'm so sorry," I murmured.

"Shhh," she said, and kissed my forehead.

"I promise I'm going to be good enough for you this time. If you want to talk, about like anything, we can talk."

She drew her hands across my hair from my face to the back of my head. It was a better response than any words would have been.

"Britt, if you miss him... if you need time, I can wait."

She flattened her hands and pressed them into the skin of my back, and it felt like she was covering me. "Santana, I'm sad, but I'm not confused anymore."

I nodded against her chest.

A moment later, I took a deep breath. "I have to ask you something," I said.

"Okay."

"You know the ball, Brittany? The one you said that grew in your chest when you fell in love with Artie? Do you, like... do you have that for me? Or did it disappear, or . . .?"

"Oh honey," she said with a small smile, "I had that for you when we were twelve. Now the ball is so big it doesn't fit in my chest. It takes up all of me."

I pressed my lips to the middle of her chest. I took a breath, then another. Just say it, Santana. You've done it before.

"I love you," I said.

She kissed me on the forehead and said, without hesitation, "I love you too."

She put her fingers under my chin and pulled my head up so that I could look at her.

"You've been so sad, Santana," she said, putting a soft kiss against my lips. "Let me make you feel good."

/

Before Rachel could even finish sorting through the million terrifying thoughts in her mind, like, _Oh God, she's about to pinch me and I'll wake up_, or, _That's it, she's tired of me and she's going back to Finn_, Quinn was saying, "That night, with the card game and the golf course and the air mattress... that was the best night of my life."

Rachel experienced something she could only describe as a very pleasing stabbing sensation in the pit of her stomach. "Yeah. Yeah, it - it was amazing," she stammered. "So what made it that way? I mean, for you?"

Quinn closed her eyes again, because that always seemed to make it easier to talk to Rachel about things. It was that stare. It just, it overwhelmed.

Quinn took a deep breath that came out like a sigh.

"Because it was the first time in a long time I knew what it could feel like to be with someone I liked and have it feel natural. It was so dark and we were all drunk, and it was Santana and Brittany. Hanging out with them made me remember when things were simpler. For a while I forgot that I should be more careful."

Is this what it was going to be like, Rachel wondered. If I kiss her for long enough, without any warning at all she'll open up this tiny window to a startlingly real corner of her heart like this? Well if that was the case, Rachel decided, if she had to kiss Quinn Fabray constantly for a few weeks at a time in order to bit by bit, slowly and painstakingly, be given these tiny little moments, well... that would be all right with her.

"Rachel, the thing is, I don't want to over think things any more," Quinn said, grasping Rachel's upper arms gently. "I slept with someone once for the wrong reasons. It doesn't make any sense to wait, does it, when I know I have the right reasons this time?"

Rachel swallowed, feeling like Quinn's words were only processing at half speed, like her brain cells were sending messages through Jell-O.

"Quinn," she said slowly, "You know, I could kiss you for the next ten years and not get bored. I would never rush you."

"No, that's not it," Quinn said, without a shred of her normal impatience. "It's that I finally have the courage, Rachel, to say... to say that _I want you._" She blushed, but met Rachel's gaze steadily.

"Um... now?" is all Rachel could say. Poetic, Berry, she inwardly kicked herself.

Quinn didn't seem to mind, or even notice. "Yeah, now."

Rachel tried again with the words thing. "It would make me so happy, Quinn, to be that close to you. To make you feel good."

"I really want that," Quinn whispered.

Rachel kissed Quinn again, then, partly because she always, always wanted to, and partly because it bought her some time to process what had just been said. Because her head was reeling. Oh, she was ready, that wasn't it. She just wasn't necessarily _prepared_.

But somehow, tugging at her among thoughts of whether Quinn had thought this out or whether it was a spur of the moment decision, and of really hoping it had been that morning she'd shaved her legs and not yesterday, was the fact that the way Quinn felt beneath her right now was a little bit different.

Her body was looser, drained of shyness and reserve, and the fingertips kneading the skin of Rachel's back were more insistent. And her breathing, suddenly shallow and quick, was sending prickly little trills of pleasure from Rachel's center straight up her spine.

Oh, okay. This was not a time for questions.

/

Brittany was so close and it was so dark that she was nothing but a cover of touches and scents, like the tickle of her hair against my neck and the smell of her strawberry lip gloss. The long length of her body pressed down against me. I felt hidden away, beneath darkness, beneath blankets, beneath her.

I pushed her hair back so I could see the outlines of her face.

She ran one hand down my body, tracing a line from my neck to my hip. I shivered and closed my eyes.

"I missed your mouth, Santana," she said, and pressed her soft lips to mine. I'm not sure how long she kissed me, just with her lips, nothing urgent or demanding. It could have been hours.

But when her tongue first grazed my lower lip, I pulled her hair at the back of her neck. I didn't even mean to, I just reacted. She liked it though. She parted my lips and buried her tongue inside my mouth.

And that was it, she owned me. I would let her do anything she wanted. And she knew that.

I whimpered when she broke the kiss, tried to pull at her hair to make her come back. To make it up to me, she brought her mouth to my ear, exhaling her breath across it. I wrapped my legs around hers and moaned.

I turned my head so she could reach anywhere she wanted to, and squirmed against her as she traced the bumps and ridges of my ear with her tongue. She pulled my earlobe into her mouth and sucked. The sound of her tongue made my body just want to fucking open.

She nudged my head upwards and I craned my neck so she could suck on it. _God, just take it,_ I thought. _Take it and then take the next thing you want. Take it all, just hurry._

She clamped her teeth down on my neck and pulled at the skin, and at the same time slid the palms of her hands over my breasts. I kicked the blankets away, starting to sweat. She lowered her head to flick her tongue across my nipples.

Leaning back onto her elbows and knees she grabbed my tits roughly, holding one with each hand. She bobbed her head up and down, sucking on one nipple, then whipped her hair to the other side to suck on the other. I dug my nails into the back of her neck to tell her, _harder._

She finished there and slid my underwear off my legs, then pressed her open mouth into the skin of my inner thigh. When I shuddered she held my legs down, held me still, and traced long, wet lines with her tongue from my hip to my collar bone and back down.

"You sound like you like that, Santana," she said.

I rolled my hips to the left and slid my leg to the outside of hers. Understanding what I wanted, she pressed her thigh against my center and groaned as she felt the slickness.

She smiled down at me, then pressed two fingers into the skin at the center of my chest. Slowly, tortuously, she moved them lower. She traced the outline of the muscles of my stomach as they quivered, then turned a loop around my belly button.

"You're all wet," she told me as she let her fingers glide down over my clit, down between the folds of skin to skim the surface of the pool below.

Then her arms were beneath me, shifting my whole body lower on the bed. She grabbed me by the ass and tilted my hips upward, took my legs and wrapped them around her waist.

I let out a noise that was half moan and half sob when her fingers filled me. I stopped breathing for the first few sharp strokes in and out of me. I had forgotten what it was like to have her take me like this. Or maybe I had forced myself to forget.

Even as much as I love feeling it, I love watching Brittany fuck me. It may be just two little fingers inside of me, but she puts her weight behind her arm and fucks me with the motion of her whole body, her tits and her hips crashing down against mine as her fingers land at their deepest point inside of me. She lets her hair fall over our faces like a canopy but tosses it frantically out of the way if she needs a better view of me.

I held the sides of her face in my hands and watched her eyes squeeze shut and her expression contort with effort. "I... love you," I panted.

She opened her eyes and looked down at me. "I love you too, Santana," she whispered, voice straining with effort. "You're so beautiful right now. Do you know that? So sexy."

That was just so much. It was all just so much. My chest felt like it was caving in, and I felt my body leaning closer to crying than climaxing.

She felt it, felt me pull back, and slowed her rhythm, stroking my face with her free hand.

"I know it's a lot, baby," she said against my lips. "But you can let go. It's okay, sweetie, it's me. I'm here." She brushed my hair from my eyes.

I grasped the hand that was against my face. This hand, this was mine. This body against me? Mine. This girl was mine. I couldn't believe I'd let anyone keep her from me for this long - even myself. Who the fuck even had the right to exist in the world except for me and her?

I nodded. "I'm ready."

She worked her thumb into my wetness, resumed her rhythm and rolled my clit under her thumb. My breath left me again and I didn't, couldn't last much longer.

"Oh my god, Brittany," I cried out. My body couldn't choose. I clenched her fingers and came, and the tears came full force right afterwards.

/

Rachel sat up on her knees and peeled the blouse from her shoulders, then fell back on top of Quinn, who made quick work of her bra.

The garment safely deposited on the carpet somewhere across the room, Rachel gripped the waistband of Quinn's pajama pants and slid them down over her hips. She accidentally (mostly) took down Quinn's underwear a few inches, too. It was her first glimpse of the girl's bare hips. The flesh softly rounded outward, the more angular protrusions of bone reached up at her. Rachel ran her hands over Quinn's belly and down across this new territory. Quinn inhaled sharply at these pioneering touches, her stomach muscles twitching.

Rachel observed that those panties were stretched taut across what were undoubtedly some of Quinn's very best curves. It was delicious torment, seeing them there framed by a flat, soft expanse of flawless white skin above and long, smooth legs below. As Quinn squirmed just a little under the scrutiny, Rachel lowered herself to Quinn's body, brushing her lips across the thin layer of white cotton that separated her from curls and slick skin, taking in a scent that made her body all but vibrate.

Quinn flattened her hands against the sheet and tightened her leg muscles as Rachel dragged her lips up her belly and chest.

Rachel came to rest at Quinn's side. She hooked her fingertips under the waistband of Quinn's underwear and pulled them down. Quinn raised her legs to let Rachel discard them entirely.

Quinn, smiling shyly, ran her hands uncomfortably across her stomach. "Don't stare, Rachel."

Rachel shook her head, taking Quinn's hands and moving them to her sides. "Don't hide from me, Quinn."

Rachel removed the rest of her clothing then, taking off the skirt and underwear she hadn't bothered to change out of when they came here after school.

"Don't stare, Quinn," Rachel said unconvincingly, standing naked beside Quinn's bed.

"I can't help it," Quinn whispered through a deep blush which only served to tell Rachel how true it was.

Rachel's body ached. She stood beside Quinn's bed aching, with want and tension and apprehension. Time to make them all go away.

Look, Quinn, she thought as she slid back into bed and Quinn pulled the covers over them. We match. Breasts to breasts. Belly to belly. Hips to hips. Legs winding around legs. Even our feet don't want to be apart, she mused as she slid her toes down Quinn's ankles.

Rachel curled her left arm under Quinn and stroked her hair with her right hand.

"Are you ready?" she asked, a slight quiver to her voice that betrayed more than she wanted.

Quinn nodded, her eyes wide.

"Don't be scared, Quinn," Rachel said. "It's okay."

Quinn rested one hand on the small of Rachel's back and the other around the back of her neck.

Rachel dropped her hand beneath the blankets and nudged apart Quinn's thighs. Not giving herself time to think about the fact that, oh my God, she was about to have sex with Quinn Fabray, she let her two middle fingers slide into Quinn's body.

And as glorious as that felt - and it did, all slick, smooth, and hot - it was Quinn's face at that moment, with her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth pulled into a grimace, that left Rachel breathless.

"You are so beautiful right now, Quinn," Rachel said.

Rachel kissed her as she began moving slowly in and out of Quinn. They needed the kissing at first, Rachel decided, like a foundation of familiarity holding them in place.

Quinn's mouth fell open and the fingertips resting lightly on Rachel's back pressed inward.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked breathlessly, struggling between wanting to just _take_ and wanting to be as gentle as Quinn needed.

"I'm okay," Quinn said, pushing Rachel's hair back from her face. "I'm good."

Quinn shifted then, lifting her bent left leg to rest it around Rachel's hips, and Rachel loved every part of it - the weight of it, the feeling of enclosure, the smooth dampness of her skin, because Quinn was sweating now. Rachel wanted more. More sweat, more reaction like this. Just, more of Quinn, just like this.

She dipped her thumb into Quinn's stickiness and slid it upwards until it rested against the girl's clit, pulsing the hard swell of it into her body every time she thrust with her fingers.

It ensured that Rachel got her wish for more, with Quinn choking out the word "God" and following that with a train of soft, whimpering noises that were the sexiest fucking thing Rachel had ever heard.

It wasn't just that Quinn was feeling obvious, intense sexual pleasure, though it was very, intoxicatingly clear that she was; it was also that she was this open, vulnerable creature that Rachel could barely reconcile with the Quinn she knew, even after all the kissing. And really, when this was over she might want to cry for how good it felt that Quinn had chosen her to get to see this, to get to feel this.

The stream of incoherent babble spilling from Quinn's lips as Rachel fucked her died away around the same time Quinn's body began to stiffen and demand, with a rough jerking of her hips, more forceful contact inside. The pliable softness of her body against Rachel's hand was no more, as she arched her back and craned her neck.

Feeling all of this happen beneath her, Rachel's heart soared.

"Come on, Quinn," Rachel said softly. "Let go for me."

Even the curve of Quinn's body pushing upwards against her and the bouncing of her breasts with the rhythm of Rachel's hand couldn't drag Rachel's eyes away from Quinn's face as she came. As the girl's body closed in on her fingers with a warm gush, Rachel watched her eyes roll back then close, watched her mouth drop open, watched her lips and cheeks turn rosy then deep red then . . . with an urgent gasp of "Oh, Rachel," retreat and lighten again.

Rachel exhaled shakily, non the verge of either a laugh or tears.

She wrapped her arms around Quinn's neck, rolled onto her side, and pulled Quinn's face against her neck, sweeping locks of damp, blonde hair back and away. Quinn threw her top arm around Rachel and they each held tight as gasps for air slowed to deep lungfuls of the scent of each others' skin.

/

"Brittany, did you miss me?" I asked, my eyes closed as she kissed the tear tracks on my cheeks.

"Every single day. You're so amazing, Santana. I want to do that to you forever."

And in that moment, I knew that was Santana Lopez's new plan: make sure Brittany never changes her mind about that.

I always feel better when I have a plan.

"I am so totes down with that, Britts," I said, rolling over on top of her. "As long as you give me a turn, too."

She grinned up at me, and I smiled down at her as my fingers slid down her body into darkness.

/

For a change, it was Quinn who spoke first.

"Rachel... was that... was it okay, for you?"

Rachel shook her head, biting her bottom lip. "No, that was not okay, Quinn. That was beautiful." She kissed Quinn's forehead. "How could it be anything else when you are so beautiful?"

"I'm not... boring?"

Sometimes, Rachel thought, words just weren't enough.

She took Quinn's hand and guided it to the stickiness that had gathered between her legs.

"Oh my God," Quinn said, fingertips dipping gently inside.

"That's what touching you did to me, Quinn," Rachel gasped, trying to force herself to breathe even given the location of Quinn's fingertips. "Because you are so sexy."

Quinn let her fingers glide tentatively across Rachel's coated skin. "It's just like touching me," she mused. "Rachel," Quinn smiled at her, rolling over to lie on top, though not letting her fingertips break contact. "Let's not sleep ever again. We don't need to. Let's just do this."

"I had already planned to never let you leave this room, so..." Rachel breathed.

"I think this is going to be a good summer," Quinn said.

"You know, I think... you might... be right," Rachel panted, before surrendering speech to the touch of Quinn's hand.

_fin_


End file.
